The day electricity arrived in Habtamu Sefi Mekonnen’s village is still etched in his memory with the sharpness of a first miracle. He remembers the commotion, the glow of light bulbs flickering awake, the villagers gathering as if called to a sacred ritual. And then, the screen. The sound. The story. A film about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ played before him—people moving, breathing, suffering, rejoicing inside a glowing box. “It was a miracle - just magic,” he recalls, still sounding like the young boy who believed entire worlds lived inside a machine. In that moment, the desire to understand that magic - maybe even create it - took hold of him.

Across the country, in a different childhood shaped by literature, theatre, and the rhythms of performance, another spark was forming. For Sihnemariam Abebe, the stage was home. She studied Theatrical Arts, embraced storytelling, but soon felt an unmistakable pull toward the power behind the scenes. Producing - not acting - was where her instincts met purpose. “Film is art, science and communication,” she says now, a reflection she discovered early in her creative journey.

Years later, these two paths - one born of a rural miracle, the other from academic rigor - would converge inside one of Africa’s most influential film training grounds: the MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF). Their meeting, and the skills they gained there, would reshape not just their careers but the direction of Ethiopia’s cinematic future. Their stories came alive recently on Arts TV’s Arts Plus programme, in the episode “DStv Is Our Benefactor” (ዲኤስቲቪ ባለውለታችን ነው) a candid conversation that peeled back the curtain on the personal journeys behind Ethiopia’s new wave of filmmakers.

Nairobi: The Furnace Where Passion Turns to Profession

Even after earning a master’s degree in film, Habtamu felt he was still missing something crucial craft sharpened by practice, not just theory. “A director must master all seven film departments,” he says, a standard he couldn’t meet in classrooms alone. Sihnemariam felt the same hunger. So they applied. They interviewed. They tested. And then they boarded planes to Nairobi, joining 18 other young filmmakers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, stepping into what would become the most intense creative year of their lives.

MTF wasn’t a school in the traditional sense. It was crucible. A culture shock. A collision of accents, habits, egos, visions. The first weeks were tense, the kind of silence that fills rooms where strangers are trying to figure out how to trust one another. But that tension evaporated the moment they picked up cameras, clapped slates, and assigned roles. “The connection deepened when we started taking on project roles,” Habtamu remembers. Suddenly, they were no longer strangers - just filmmakers chasing the same dream.

The campus lights rarely went off. With 24/7 access to cameras, edit suites, and studios, weekends became laboratories: cinematography drills, editing experiments, sound tests, short films made on little sleep and a lot of adrenaline. You didn’t learn filmmaking at MTF by reading about it. You learned by failing, restarting, improvising, sweating, surviving—and finally creating something that worked.

From Classroom to Set: The Leap Into Industry

When the program ended, the momentum didn’t. MTF was designed to be a pipeline - not just training, but access. Proof came quickly.

Sihnemariam returned to Addis and stepped straight onto the set of Second Family, the hit drama commissioned by DStv. She wasn’t just another crew member. She was line producer. Production manager. A decision-maker trusted with budgets, schedules, and creative execution. “MTF gave us an international CV,” she says, and it shows.

For Habtamu, the leap was even more dramatic. His feature film Full Time Husband was selected and commissioned through the DStv–MTF ecosystem. Today, it airs across all DStv East African platforms and streams on Showmax - visibility most filmmakers only dream of. Then came the thunderbolt: his short film Stop the War won an International Emmy. Suddenly, doors opened—Durban film labs, festivals in Germany, professional networks that stretched far beyond Africa. “The Emmy changed my life, because DStv opened the door,” he says, still sounding amazed.

The Broader Story: A Continent Rewriting Its Cinematic Identity

What MTF is building extends far beyond individual careers. It’s reshaping an entire ecosystem.

By raising standards through hands-on, professional training, it is pushing East African storytelling to new heights. By forcing collaboration between filmmakers from four countries, it is knitting together a Pan-African network that will outlive the classroom. By commissioning student and alumni projects, it is proving that talent deserves real budgets - not just applause. And by nurturing filmmakers who win global awards, it is sending a message the world can no longer ignore: African cinema is not “emerging”; it is arriving.

Ethiopia, long powered by grassroots passion but underserved by infrastructure, now stands at the edge of a cinematic renaissance. Alumni like Habtamu and Sihnemariam are not just making films; they are building blueprints. They are instructors, mentors, collaborators, and examples of what happens when opportunity meets preparation.

A Mother’s Prophecy

In the final moments of the Arts Plus interview, the conversation turned intimate. Habtamu spoke of his mother - a woman who, he says, always believed his path was destined. “She always says, ‘I saw you before you were born,’” he recalls, his voice tinged with both gratitude and awe. That belief has become his compass. It is why he creates. Why he teaches. Why he feels compelled to “draw, recreate and lift the fallen,” using cinema not as entertainment alone but as a tool for healing, reflection, and guidance.

And when asked what advice he would give to young Ethiopian filmmakers, his answer carried the urgency of someone who understands how quickly opportunities can vanish: “The time for waiting is over. Use what you have. Be creative. Make your own opportunities.”

A New Generation Rising

If Ethiopia’s next cinematic era has architects, they look like this: a village boy enchanted by a miracle of light, a theatre student who reinvented her artistic purpose, and dozens more who now believe—because they have seen it—that global careers can begin in Addis Ababa, Hawassa, Bahir Dar, Adama, Gondar.

The foundation built by DStv and strengthened by MTF graduates is no longer just producing individual success stories. It is constructing an industry—one film, one skillset, one dream at a time. And for the first time in history, Ethiopia is not merely participating in African cinema. It is helping define it.

Exclusive Interview

Creating The New Architects of Ethiopian Cinema