“Alganesh” is a 2018 film written, directed and edited by the mother-daughter duo, Lia Giovanazzi Beltrami and Marianna Beltrami. The hour-long Italian-Ethiopian feature documentary is an Aurora Vision production.
The film is produced by the Festival Director of Religion Today Film Festival, Andrea Morghen. The music of the film is by Lia’s husband, Alberto Beltrami. "Alganesh" was screened at the Woman Filmmaker section of the recently held 17th Dhaka International Film Festival.
The film follows four refugee camps of Eritreans in Ethiopia. After decades of war, a new battle is being fought today at the border between the two countries. It is the battle of survival for thousands of refugees fleeing from the dictatorship of Isaias Afewerki.
Ethiopia hosts a total of one million people fleeing from Eritrea, South Sudan, Somalia and Congo. The refugee camps lack basic necessities of life, like water. But the biggest cause of despair is the uncertainty awaiting every one of them.
The protagonist of the film, Dr Alganesh Fessah, is an Italian-Eritrean Ayurvedic medicine specialist, who is also co-founder and president of a humanitarian organization called Gandhi Charity, which started in 2003 to support the refugee camps, among other things. The organization is devoted to helping children, teenagers and women through several assistance projects developed in different countries of Africa, Europe and Asia. Dr Alganesh received the Ambrogino d’oro, the highest certificate of merit in Milan in 2013.
"Alganesh" has received widespread international recognition. It won the Special Jury Mention at Siloe Film Festival in Italy, the Silver Taurasi for Best Photography at Taurasi Film Festival in Italy, Honourable Jury Mention at Mumbai Film Festival, third prize for Best Documentary at New Delhi Film Festival, Juana Cuadrado Migration Award at Festival de Cine Social y Derechos Humanos (Cineotro) in Chile, and an honorary media award at the Silk Road International Film Festival in Xi'an, China.
Director Lia told Showtime that the refugees cried “water” when they first arrived at the camps.
“I took inspiration from meeting Dr Alganesh a few years ago. I started to help her with fundraising, and to free some prisoners in Sinai. So, I always wanted to tell her story,” she said. “The first day we arrived at the camps, with my daughter Marianna, it was overwhelming. A lorry arrived with 70 people and one youth jumped from the van, breaking his foot. We stopped filming and started helping him. They were starving and they were dehydrated."
Producer Andrea Morghen told Showtime: “Everyday, we saw boats full of people crossing the sea to look for a better future, we wanted to understand where they started from, and the great work of Dr Alganesh which helps them endlessly. It was an unforgettable experience to shoot this film and put my feet inside the fields, touching the suffering with my hands. This film aims to make young people aware of the problem of migrants, and fight against great indifference and misinformation.”
Documentaries like “Alganesh” have the potential to create awareness about the Eritrean refugee crisis in Ethiopia. Throughout the documentary, a refugee woman appears every now and then, painstakingly roasting and grinding coffee beans, brewing coffee from scratch.
The process of making this beverage for everyone’s refreshment is far from refreshing for her. To me, it symbolized the social strata of the refugees – a class surrendering their lives, while the political and business goons reap the profits.