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Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
RAI FILM
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Films
found one film
shorter than 40 minutes
x
available to watch on demand
x
Region
“North and Northeast Africa”
x
Country
“Ethiopia”
x
Keywords
“Agriculture Farming”
x
Directors
“Gabrehiwot, Mitiku”
x
Series
“Guardians of Productive Landscapes”
x
Country of production
“Germany”
x
Year of production
“2018”
x
Colour / Black and white
“Colour”
x
films hosted on Kanopy
1
short films
1
x
films available on demand
1
x
Region
North and Northeast Africa
1
x
Country
Ethiopia
1
x
Keywords
Agriculture / Farming
1
x
Food / Water
1
Directors
Gabrehiwot, Mitiku
1
x
Series
Guardians of Productive Landscapes
1
x
Country of production
Ethiopia
1
Germany
1
x
Year of production
2018
1
x
Colour / Black and white
Film
Dancing Grass. Harvesting teff in the Tigrean highlands
2018
40
‘
Directed by
Mitiku Gabrehiwot
.
Dancing Grass is a film in the Guardians of Productive Landscapes series (editor Ivo Strecker). It captures the communal harvesting of teff among Tigreans of Northern Ethiopia. Teff, an ancient indigenous grain, is central to the livelihood of smallholder farmers and may be called the ‘cereal core’ of Ethiopian national food identity. A local elder provides the commentary for the sequence of events that unfold in the homestead, fields and neighbourhood of the author’s eldest brother and family: the cutting of the ‘dancing grass’; the drying and stacking; the threshing and winnowing; then the sale of teff in the local market; off with a donkey to the mill; cooking enjera for family and guests; coffee drinking and blessing; and finally the Mesqel fire, an Orthodox Christian celebration at the end of the rainy season.
North and Northeast Africa
Agriculture / Farming
Food / Water