Built by Emperor Haile Selassie at the dawn of Africa's pivotal 1960s, the Hilton Addis Ababa remains a monument to his vision of progress and power's self-image. From a hotel room, Ruth Beckermann traces Ethiopia's fractured history through archival footage, encounters in the lobby, and reflections on her position as a European woman in Africa. Moving between fact and fiction, the familiar and the foreign, her search uncovers contradictions rather than certainty. Outside, workers wait for buses beneath unfinished towers, exposing the gulf between the hotel's splendor and the city's harsh reality. 

Following Mutzenbacher (2022) and Favoriten (2024), Ruth Beckermann roams the spaces of a hotel in Addis Ababa, acutely aware of the limits imposed on her gaze as a white European woman. Built under Emperor Haile Selassie in the 1960s as a symbol of Ethiopia’s newly established national stature, the Hilton Addis Ababa becomes the physical and narrative setting for an examination of colonialism under a microscope. The hotel has also been regarded as a monument to the emperor’s self-mythologizing and vanity—an aspect of Haile Selassie rarely spoken of among Ethiopians.
Unlike in earlier films, where she remained a largely passive observer behind the camera, Beckermann enters this work directly, as the subject of its voice-over and through her interactions with hotel employees. Her intervention reflects both a desire to create as complete a documentary as the subject allows and an acknowledgment that she cannot escape the inherent limitations of a white European observer from a continent built on colonial expansion. Objective and modest, Beckermann does not strive to complete a portrait of a nation; instead she brings different perspectives together, inviting reflection on how the country’s past has shaped its present.

• ProducerRuth BECKERMANN
• Screenplay Ruth BECKERMANN
• Cinematography Johannes HAMMEL
• Edit Dieter PICHLER
• Sound Andreas HAMZA
• Music Marino FORMENTI, Samuel YIRGA
• Cast Claus STEINER, Solomon WONDIMU, Furtuna LEGESSE, Seifedin BADI, Yasser BAGERSH, Fasil GIORGHIS, Hannah Mariam Meherete SELASSIE, Ato ESHETU, Isheba TAFARI, Samuel YIRGA, Marino FORMENTI, Abenezer TESFAHUN, Birukti BIRRU

Pascale RAMONDA | pascale@pascaleramonda.com