Guest
In grandiose wide opening shots, slow panoramas, and concise static compositions, Daniel Kötter explores the landscape east of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. He focused his attention on four urbanizing areas, in which the boundaries between urban and rural, between industry and agriculture are blurring. The film also gives us an insight into the private lives of the locals. Their off-screen comments help create a layered portrait of a place undergoing drastic ecological and social changes - for which many are not prepared. The Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa (Finfinnee in Oromo, the local language) is an impetuously growing metropolis. Daniel Kötter, who not only appears as a documentary filmmaker but also works in music theater, creates an allegorical narrative in carefully composed images and sounds. “Rift Finfinne” is a total work of art that gives itself and us time for discoveries and insights that are not conveyed by the commentary, but narrated off-screen by local residents themselves. The very precise and visually powerful observation of rapid urbanisation shows its stark effects on the population and renders visible the genesis of new and ancien fault lines along geographical, economic and politically constructed ethnic divides. An immersive dive into a world in upheaval.
