Yared Zeleke

EARLY LIFE

Yared Zeleke was born in 1978 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He spent his early childhood in the city’s slums during a turbulent period that included the Ethiopian Civil War, the Derg regime, and the mid-1980s famine. He was largely raised by his grandmother, Tafesech Zeleke, whose storytelling, kindness, and coffee ceremonies deeply influenced him. At the age of ten, he immigrated to the United States with his father, leaving behind the family and environment that had shaped his early years. This separation and longing for home later informed much of his creative work.

CAREER

Before turning fully to filmmaking, Zeleke worked for various NGOs in the United States, Ethiopia, Namibia, and Norway. He initially studied agriculture/agro-economics in Norway with the idealistic goal of contributing to food security in Ethiopia, but ultimately shifted toward storytelling. He earned a BA in International Development from Clark University and later an MFA in Writing and Directing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. His thesis short film, Lottery Boy, received an award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Agency in 2012. Zeleke’s debut feature, Lamb (2015), was shot on the high plateaus of northern Ethiopia. It became the first Ethiopian film ever selected for the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection (Un Certain Regard section). The film received widespread critical praise from outlets including The New York Times, BBC, CNN, PBS, The Guardian, Financial Times, Le Monde, and Der Spiegel. It had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2016, and sold to more than thirty territories, including the United States and China. Variety named Zeleke one of its “10 Screenwriters to Watch.” His earlier short works include Full, Housewarming, The Quiet Garden, and the documentary collaboration The Furious Force of Rhymes. He has also edited documentaries for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Ethiopia. His second feature script, Sunbirds, has received significant development support, including a Rockefeller Foundation Resident Fellowship at the Bellagio Center, a San Francisco Film Society screenwriting grant, the German ARTE prize, the Swiss Visions Sud Est prize, funding from Aide aux Cinémas du Monde (CNC), and mentoring through the Sundance Institute’s FilmTwo Initiative and the Realness Residency in South Africa. In addition to his own projects, Zeleke works as a script consultant and teaches screenwriting and directing at universities and institutions, including Columbia University School of the Arts, UCLA Extension, and as a visiting professor at Wesleyan University.

PERSONAL LIFE

Zeleke has spoken publicly about his experiences as an immigrant and as a gay teenager in the United States during the 1990s. He has described finding solace in cinema while missing Ethiopia. He maintains strong ties to his Ethiopian roots and has split time between the United States (particularly New York) and Ethiopia.

Yared Zeleke is widely regarded as a pioneering figure in contemporary Ethiopian cinema for bringing a nuanced, personal, and internationally resonant vision of Ethiopian life to the global stage. Lamb is often described as semi-autobiographical, exploring themes of separation, belonging, childhood, and resilience. He continues to develop new work while mentoring emerging filmmakers and advocating for African and diaspora stories.