Zeresenay Berhane Mehari

EARLY LIFE

Zeresenay Berhane Mehari was born in 1974 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, into a family with seven siblings. His parents strongly emphasized education; all the siblings went on to earn college degrees. His father, who owned and cooked at a small restaurant in Addis Ababa, introduced him to cinema. From the age of six until he was 18, the family attended the movies every Sunday as a tradition. Growing up under Ethiopia’s Communist military dictatorship (the Derg), they watched Indian films, martial-arts movies, and Soviet propaganda films, as Western cinema was restricted. He later moved to the United States (around 1996, after winning a Diversity Visa Lottery in some accounts) to pursue film studies. One brother and a sister settled in the Netherlands, and another brother lives in Sweden.

CAREER

After arriving in the U.S., Mehari studied film at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. While at USC he founded the production company Haile-Addis Pictures (also referred to as Haile–Addis Pictures). He began his professional work as a production assistant on television documentary series such as Backstory (2000) and History vs. Hollywood (2001). In 2006 he produced the short Leila and directed his own short Coda. He also worked as co-line producer on the documentary Africa Unite: A Celebration of Bob Marley’s 60th Birthday (2008). His breakthrough came with his debut feature Difret (2014), which he wrote and directed. The film is based on the true story of a landmark Ethiopian legal case involving the tradition of telefa (abduction for marriage) and the work of lawyer Meaza Ashenafi. Angelina Jolie served as executive producer. Difret premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Audience Award, and also won the Fiction Film Prize / Audience Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, among other honors. Its planned Ethiopian premiere in 2014 was initially blocked by authorities but the film was later released successfully in the country after legal challenges. In 2019 he directed Sweetness in the Belly, an adaptation of Camilla Gibb’s novel starring Dakota Fanning and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. The film premiered in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival. He has also directed television work, including the series Inheritance (Wurse) (2019). Beyond feature films, Mehari is co-founder and former Head of Original Content for Kana Television, Ethiopia’s leading free-to-air private satellite entertainment channel. He is currently co-founder and Head of Production at A51 Pictures, an independent film production company based in Addis Ababa. His work frequently focuses on stories with strong social impact, particularly those centering women confronting adversity and seeking justice.

PERSONAL LIFE

Mehari is married to Mehret Mandefro, an Ethiopian-American producer, physician, and anthropologist. They met while working on Difret (she became a producer on the project after reading the script) and later married. The couple has children. Mehari has spent significant time between the United States and Ethiopia throughout his career.

Mehari is recognized as one of the prominent contemporary Ethiopian filmmakers working on both local and international stages. His films have screened at major festivals including Sundance, Berlin, and Toronto, and he continues to develop projects through A51 Pictures for both Ethiopian and global audiences. He has been involved in workshops and industry events, sharing insights on narrative and cross-cultural filmmaking.