Edmonton-made film explores Eritrean life in Canada

Two newcomers who ended up in Edmonton from very different places are working on a documentary called Frozen Injera to capture both the joys and the hardships experienced by the Eritrean community.

Collaborators Dmitrii Eske and Amanuel Hagos, from Russia and Eritrea respectively, connected while Eske was working at a bank, helping new arrivals get established. There he met many Eritreans and picked up some words of Tigrinya.

"I absolutely fell in love with the community; I absolutely fell in love with the people," Eske told Taproot. "When I had an opportunity to stop working in a bank and restart my career, this was the first project that I thought about."

Eske, who was part of the team behind Beef, a 2019 documentary about Russian hip-hop, never planned to move to Canada. He was visiting the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019 when someone stole his bag and passport. The Russian government refused to issue him new travel documents because he had attended rallies and meetings that were critical of the government, he said.

"Then COVID hit — long story short, I lived for, like, one-and-a-half years without any ID and without a work permit," Eske said. "So I started from the bottom. I worked in construction and then for a bank."

Hagos, director of photography and co-producer for the film, began his refugee journey in Ethiopia, surviving mortal danger during an arduous crossing into Sudan, then spending 11 years in Israel before making his way to Canada. He wants more people to know about Eritrean life.

"I just want to explain and to share our culture with the people of Canada," he said. "We have a big community, but I don't think everyone knows my country."

Nanu Alem, one of the subjects of the film, has been in Edmonton for about four years, and is a TikTok creator with 200,000 followers who watch her smile and dance to ebullient music with her family.

Indeed, Frozen Injera isn't ultimately about persecution — it's about persistence and the refusal to lose your capacity for joy. "A documentary about Eritreans in Canada rebuilding their lives, weaving threads of memories, humour, and warmth to discover home in the most unexpected corner of the world," its tagline reads.

But the horrors of crossing the Sinai Peninsula, such as human trafficking, kidnapping, sexual violence, and murder, cannot be ignored. Even arrival at the Israel-Egypt border is perilous; Alem dodged gunfire between the two nations' forces.

"People are just walking in the desert for like 14 days," Eske said. "There are hyenas and border patrols — it's crazy. These people are just looking for a better life."

Eritrea borders the Red Sea in East Africa. It has a population of 3.8 million, with about 660,000 living in exile. The latest Human Rights Watch report for Eritrea says dictator Isaias Afwerki, who took power in 1993 upon the country's independence from Ethiopia, has oppressed citizens using indefinite conscripted military service, restrictions on religion, illegal detention, and other abuses. Citizens are not permitted to leave the country without an exit visa.

The 2021 Canadian census counted 4,580 people of Eritrean descent in the Edmonton area. Eske and Hagos have begun telling some of their stories, with shoots at Studio A and Theatre Network's Roxy Theatre. So far, all of the stories come from Edmontonians, but Eske's Motion & Magic production company is seeking funding to go further afield.

Funding has been a challenge, despite Eske's work on Beef. Motion & Magic was unsuccessful in grant applications with the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Edmonton Arts Council, he said, but the project has received $1,500 in support from Edmonton Screen to attend Hot Docs, a leading documentary festival based in Toronto.

The majority of funding has been $70,000 from Monaco-based Hicham Moudden. The team has been able to attract editor Roger Hinze, who has worked on such films as Starship Troopers.

Eske hopes to premiere the film in 2027, perhaps at the Whistler Film Festival he has attended as a filmmaker. Talks are already underway with Asian and European distributors.

For now, the filmmakers' ask is to get their project listed on IMDB and for more funders to come to the table.

Work on Frozen Injera proceeds as Albertans prepare to vote in an Oct. 19 referendum, which includes five questions about immigration pertaining to provincial control over the number and types of immigrants, as well as access to social services and ID requirements for voting.

Eske, who has felt the consequences for criticizing governments, declined to comment on the referendum.

Correction: This story has been updated to remove an incorrect detail about distribution with TVF.