Channel 4 documentary to provide intimate portrait of Ethiopian tribe

In a television first, Channel 4 has been granted access by a rural African tribe to capture their life as never seen before by using the ‘fixed rig’ camera technology behind the critically-acclaimed series ‘Educating’ and 24 Hours in A&E.

This brand new 4 x 60 observational documentary series will explore their day-to-day family life: the intricacies of their relationships, their social bonds and attitudes towards parenting and the community and the modernisation that is slowly being introduced into daily life with the arrival of new technologies and first world consumer products.

Head of Documentaries Nick Mirsky has ordered the series from Renegade Pictures with filming starting in Ethiopia in September for several weeks and tx planned for early 2015.

Mirsky says: “We feel incredibly privileged to have been invited into this community and allowed access in this unprecedented way. The series will focus on their domestic lives and their relationships with one another, telling the universal stories of weddings and marriages, friendships and love and the highs and lows of bringing up children in a raw and authentic way. It is early days but from what we have seen so far we already expect that viewers will find more in common with the lives of these tribal people than separates them.”

Rig cameras will capture life around the village covering the huts of the main family members as well as some communal areas. Camera crews will also follow life beyond the confines of the village including trips to the local town where electricity is available and visits to a neighbouring village as one family prepares for a wedding between their son and a local girl.

Renegade’s Director of Programmes Harry Lansdown is the executive producer and Paddy Wivell (Bedlam, Wonderland, Cutting Edge) is the series director. The series is being overseen by Channel 4 Documentaries Commissioning Editor David Brindley.

Lansdown says: “This is a potentially thrilling re-location of the rig to a remote place, where we hope to capture the everyday family life of a tribe in a way that has never been seen before. The family at the centre of this series are warm and open, and I’m confident the channel 4 viewers will enjoy being immersed in their world.”