Salem Mekuria

Salem Mekuria is Associate Professor of Art at Wellesley College. A filmmaker, Professor Mekuria teaches art history and studio courses in film history and video production. Mekuria, originally from Ethiopia, now based in Boston, is an active film producer, writer, and director whose work is exhibited internationally. For a number of years, she worked with NOVA, PBS’s premier science documentary series, and with numerous international film productions focusing on issues of African women and development. She has produced several award-winning documentary films and a video installation. Her work-in-progress includes a feature film screenplay and a video installation project for the Ethiopian millennium celebration in 2007.

Professor Mekuria is the recipient of: a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2005–06); Fulbright Scholar Research Fellowship (2003–04); New England Media Fellowship (2001); the Rockefeller Foundation's Intercultural Media Fellowship (1995); Lila Wallace Reader's Digest International Artists Residency Fellowship (1993); a fellowship at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, Harvard University (1990–92); and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation Award (1991).

In 2003, Professor Mekuria participated in the 50th Venice Biennale in Italy, a major bi-annual international art exhibition, with her presentation, RUPTURES: A Many-Sided Story. Written, produced, and directed by Professor Mekuria, RUPTURES is a triptych video installation charting one century of major events in Ethiopian history.

She has also written, produced, and directed:

• YE WONZ MAIBEL (DELUGE), 1997, is a one-hour personal visual essay on history, conflict, loss, and reconciliation. Told through a first-person narrative, it explores the momentous events that took place in Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991. It has won: Heart of the Festival in the Vermont International Film Festival (1998); First Place in the National Black Programming Consortium's Prized Pieces (1997); and Director's Citation in the Black Maria Film and Video Festival (1997). It has been screened internationally, including: the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Alliance Ethio-Francaise, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the 6th New York African Film Festival at Lincoln Center; Edge of Awareness - WHO Anniversary World Arts Festival in Geneva, New York, Sao Paolo, and New Delhi; Amnesty International Film Festival, Amsterdam; the Contemporary African Diaspora Film Festival, New York; Cinema Africa, Stockholm and Zurich; the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa; the Fourth International Women's Film Festival, Minsk, Belarus; the Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, USA; the Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles, USA; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA. It was funded and produced in association with Channel Four Television, England, and the National Black Programming Consortium, USA.
  
  
• SIDET: Forced Exile, 1991, is a one-hour documentary film profiling three Ethiopian/Eritrean refugee women in the Sudan. It was filmed on location in the Sudan and was completed in 1991. It has won the Silver Apple in the National Educational Film and Video Festival (1993); Honorable Mention, 7th Annual Atlanta Film and Video Festival (1993); First Place in the National Black Programming Consortium's Prized Pieces (1992); Outstanding Independent Film in the New England Film and Video Festival (1992); and Juror's Citation (1991). It was funded by the United Nations Development Program for Women and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and was produced in association with and broadcast by Channel Four TV in England and WDR in Germany.
  
  
• AS I REMEMBER IT, A Portrait of Dorothy West, 1991, is a 56-minute video portrait of veteran Harlem Renaissance writer, Dorothy West. It was broadcast on WGBH Public Television in Boston in September, 1991. It has won the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Gold Award for local programming; First Place, Non-Fiction Category, in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame; Honorable Mention in the National Black Programming's Prized Pieces; and was nominated for an Emmy Award.
  
  
• OUR PLACE IN THE SUN, 1988, is a 30-minute portrait of the Black community on Martha’s Vineyard Island. Broadcast on WGBH-TV in February, 1988, it was nominated for an Emmy.

Her website is found here:

www.salemmekuria.com

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Profile last updated: 10/05