Early Years
Haile Gerima was born and raised in Gondar, Ethiopia. His father was a dramatist and playwright, who traveled across the Ethiopian countryside staging local plays. He was an important early influence.
Gerima emigrated to the United States in 1968 to study theatre. He enrolled in acting classes at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. "When I was growing up," he told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to work in theater—it never occurred to me I could be a filmmaker because I was raised on Hollywood movies that pacified me to be subservient. Film making isn't encouraged or supported by the Ethiopian government." He felt limited by theater and was resigned, notes Francoise Pfaff, to "subservient roles in Western plays."
In 1970 he moved to California to attend the University of California, where he earned Bachelor's and Master's of Fine Arts degrees in film. He was part of a generation of new black filmmakers who became known as the Los Angeles School of Black filmmakers, along with Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary), Ben Caldwell (I and I), Larry Clark and Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust).
Gerima has noted the influence of Vittorio de Sica, Fernando Solanas, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, and Med Hondo.
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