Stories of History

Abstract In 2015 Ethiopia was dubbed an “emerging economy,” experiencing substantial growth in GDP over the prior ten years. The country was considered an “African Lion” by the Brookings Institution, and foreign investment and interest began to grow, especially as a new PM took charge in 2018, ushering in immense hope from both Ethiopians and foreign investors. But just as quickly as hope can be sewn it can be cut. In Amharic, the translation of “hopeless” is tesfa qoretewal—qoretewal coming from the verb “to cut.” By 2020 Ethiopia descended into a civil war, foreign direct investment plummeted, and despair settled in. Despite being accepted into BRICS in 2023, many are suffering amid extremely unequal growth. This article takes two recent documentaries, Anbessa and Faya Dayi to ask a few related questions about chronicling Ethiopia’s economic miracle. First, what does it mean to live in between hope and despair, promise and melancholy, economic optimism and lived despair? Second, how do these films aesthetically offer alternative ways of writing stories and history about Ethiopia? Finally, what possibilities might these artistic renderings of Ethiopia’s “economic miracle” offer as alternatives to Ethiopian historiography and contextualization of so-called economic miracles more broadly?