What does visibility look like? Growing up in Ethiopia, SheaMoisture Grant-winning filmmaker and artist Herrana Addisu’s life’s work has been devoted to shedding light on women in conflict and beauty standards in her home country. This is also the case in her recent film River, supported by Tina Knowles. “[River is] a story I’ve been writing in my head my whole life because it’s the existence and livelihood of my childhood,” Addisu tells ESSENCE.
After winning the Blueprint Grant last August, SheaMoisture sponsored her creative agency Chucha Studios to produce the film, actualizing a narrative the Black community can relate to. Honing in on culturally-sensitive and political themes—from water and education access to ancestral lessons, forced marriage, and beauty standards—Adisu took the funds back to Ethiopia (to collaborate with the local production house Qene Films) to tell her story.
“I wanted the film to have complicated conversations that we don’t always have in this day and age,” she says. For example, Ethiopian stick and poke body tattooing (called “Niksat”) is a common tradition strung through each of her pieces. “Growing up, I always thought it was so beautiful,” she says. “But, there is this sense of resentment towards it because a lot of women didn’t feel like they consented to having a permanent tattoo.”
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