Beshir will go chugging along. I think she will stay in the fringes, flaring up once in a while. I really don't think any substantial number of Ethiopians have seen the film - it is hard to find, and online platforms are too expensive. It will just stay in the shelves (if even kept there).
She can make all the films that she wants with her "euphoria" drugs - to get closer to "god" - in her Brooklyn apartment.
Like all evil things, it is a matter of vigilance. Any time Beshir starts with her "Ethiopia" bluff, I will catch it. What else can she do now, anyway? Her ten-year (I say her decades-long) project has fizzled.
So, the latest now is with the International Documentary Association (IDA), whose mission is...
...of a world where documentary creators flourish. Through our work, we connect audiences with the best of the form, provide resources, create community, and defend the rights and freedoms of documentary artists, activists and journalists around the globe. We do this work because we believe that documentaries enrich and deepen our culture, fostering a more informed and connected world.
A March 3, 2022 report on the IDA informs us that:
Four senior staffers who resigned in protest from the International Documentary Association are responding to a public statement from the IDA board dismissing their concerns about how the nonprofit organization is being run under new executive director Rick Pérez.The board published a letter on the IDA website on Friday acknowledging “a number of documentary community members have expressed concern about recent changes at the IDA – particularly the resignations of four staff members.”The board wrote that it hired “outside legal counsel and an independent investigator” to look into complaints from the four staffers – Maggie Bowman, Jina Chung, Amy Halpin and Poh Si Teng – about workplace conduct by Pérez.
Perez comes to the IDA with a wealth of experience in nonfiction, both as an executive and filmmaker. He most recently served as the director of acquisitions and distribution strategies at GBH WORLD Channel, curating and acquiring documentaries for the digital platform’s three original series. Before that he was director of creative partnerships at the Sundance Institute “where he developed, designed, and led artist-based filmmaking programs, including Stories of Change,” according to the IDA. He also designed and led the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Story and Edit Lab in Beijing.
And this is the organization which gave Beshir "Best Cinematographer" award, a film made on the backs of drug-addicted, destitute, Oromo youth.
I'm not sure if there is a monetary prize for this dubious award, through an organization that purports to
support[s] the vital work of documentary storytellers and champion[s] a thriving and inclusive documentary culture.
and where
[e]ight months after the IDA board tapped Rick Pérez as its new executive director, four senior staffers resigned en masse. A fifth left in February; two junior staffers followed suit. All are women or non-binary. This leaves the IDA with five vacant director-level positions on a six-person leadership team.
And
Among those who resigned recently is Cassidy Dimon, who served as associate director of public programs and events. In a statement shared exclusively with Deadline, she said, “Working at the IDA was a dream of mine. I am very proud of the work I did over the past nearly 4 years, but the current atmosphere at the organization, that I and many other staff members experienced as hostile and intimidating, made it untenable for me to stay.”
Dimon continues:
“In resigning, it is my hope that the leadership of IDA prioritizes staff wellbeing and upholds commitments it has made to the community of independent makers that it serves and to whom it is accountable.”
The leadership in question is Perez, who
...took the top job at the IDA after holding senior positions with the Sundance Institute and WGBH. In assuming the ED position, he became the IDA’s first BIPOC and LGBTQ leader, overseeing a staff that included many people who also identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ. Sources told Deadline staff greeted the hiring of Pérez as a positive move towards inclusion in the documentary field.
BIPOC of course refers to Perez's Hispanic background (although I'me not sure if the other labels pertain to him also).
The film news site (Deadline) continues on Perez's leadership:
...multiple current and former staff, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about internal matters at the IDA, told Deadline that as time went by, Pérez alienated staff by what they said was his propensity to bully and demean underlings, explode at meetings, react angrily to feedback, and to use language that diminished female staff.
“Since Rick Pérez took office in May 2021, nine IDA employees have left – most without prospects,” said one source. “Of those nine, eight were women and one was non-binary. That should say something.”
More (an interview) on Ricky Perez here, who tells us:
...the challenges that I was facing on my own when I was making films were very common challenges to underrepresented filmmakers and particularly filmmakers of color.
More here on Perez, and his "systemic racism" ideology, which fits right in with Beshir's "systemic racism" claims of the Southern Ethiopia Oromo peoples. And here's the crunch:
Perez said as nonfiction films are playing an increasingly important role in shaping a global narrative, it’s crucial that historically underrepresented filmmakers have the opportunity to add their perspectives to the conversation.
And of course films in the time of COVID determines even documentary film prize decisions:
Pérez comes to IDA at a pivotal time, as we slowly re-emerge from the throes of the pandemic and continue to engage in the global reckoning on racial injustice and inequities in our community. The year 2020 was epochal in so many ways, and helped spur IDA to double down on its mission and vision and dig deep into redefining its core values in order to shape an organization that truly addresses, through its rich range of programming, the needs and concerns of the community.
IDA awarded Beshir's film Faya Dayi the Best Cinematography prize, in another obscure, but fundamentally hypocritical arts organization, where the leader has a cloud of "inequity" "problems" hanging over his head. This fits well with Beshir's ideological claims that these Southern Ethiopia youth live a life of discrimination and oppression (which I have refuted here).
They all deserve each other.
And Beshir loses - still.