Let me tell you about the history of our film collective. Sudden Flowers started as a part of Hope for Children (HFC). All the Sudden Flowers children come from HFC. After two or three years of making films together, we separated from HFC. We worked alone as Sudden Flowers. At the 9th anniversary celebration, we tried to show HFC how hard Sudden Flowers is working and all the talents we have.
Danny, a filmmaker from here in Addis, came to HFC and wanted to make films with the kids. Yewoinchet, director of HFC, liked the idea and came to all the meetings. They helped us form our group and learn filmmaking as well as acting. We had good relations with HFC. As our group got more serious about filmmaking, we didn't have enough time to focus on the films. The guard would interrupt us, or not let us in to do our work. We needed to find more freedom and time to work. The only option we could find was to separate from HFC. After we separated, Yewoinchet wanted to help, but she had too much work at HFC to be involved with Sudden Flowers.
Before separating, HFC did fundraising for Sudden Flowers. HFC wanted to help us so we could keep helping them by filming the events there. After we separated, we stopped filming HFC's events because our budget only covered our own projects. Many people at HFC didn't support the separation because we weren't filming HFC's projects anymore. When we were working on our own as a separate association, more misunderstandings happened. Some of the workers at HFC criticized Sudden Flowers for not doing good work. They thought we weren't doing good work just because they didn't see the films we were making and everything that went into those films. We felt bad about this. HFC is very important to us and we want their respect and love.
One year, the United Nations held a film festival. Sudden Flower's film got 2nd place in the competition. When Yewoinchet saw this, she was very happy with our work. She wanted us to show our films to all the workers at HFC. Since we got the prize, some people at HFC who thought we weren't doing good work realized that we were. We earned some respect from HFC. I was very happy that they could understand how hard we were working and how important Sudden Flowers is for us.
The 9th anniversary of HFC was another opportunity to show them our talents and hard work. HFC invited us to participate. This was the first time since we separated from HFC that Sudden Flowers participate as a group in one of HFC's programs. I have great hope that Sudden Flowers can keep doing well work together and that we will continue to work closely with HFC and share ideas.
