Sweeping Addis - the Street Sweepers of Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia with four million inhabitants, on a rainy day. A glance out the window of a moving car focuses in on shrouded female figures. With circumspection and respect filmmaker Corinne Kuenzli, wins the confidence of these women who sweep the streets and they allow her to film them. In the privacy of their own four walls, the women remove their coverings, tell their life stories, speak about their worries and misery but also of their happiness and wishes for the future. Their intimate accounts are combined with atmospherically strong images which show the women in their private daily lives: with their families, celebrating together in honor of the Holy Mary and during their strenuous work on the dusty streets. The pictures reflecting hard reality are contrasted by the floating melodies of flutes composed by Ethiopian Abegasu Shiota. A multifacetted portrait emerges of four remarkable survival artists in a land marked by uncertainty and poverty.