Harvest: 3,000 Years

In a small rural Ethiopian setting, a brutal landowner rules the land and shouts orders from his chair outside his house. His loyal servant Kentu endures a life of subservience while quietly hoping to inherit his master's shoes. The film follows a poor peasant family and their neighbors as they navigate exploitation and seek dignity.

Kentu, the landowner's faithful servant, carries out orders with weary acceptance while secretly dreaming of one day taking his master’s place. He endures the power imbalance without overt rebellion, illustrating the stakes of ambition in a feudal system. His perspective foreshadows the tensions to come.

Beletch, the young daughter of a local family, tends cattle and makes charcoal from cow manure to help her household survive. She plays with local boys but resents being judged differently because she is a girl. The family ekes out a precarious life under the shadow of the landowner’s power.

Beletch experiences a prophetic dream in which the landowner and his son drive her family under the oxbow to force them to plow the land. Her grandmother regards the dream as a warning and a sign of impending upheaval. The dream sows a seed of resistance in Beletch’s heart.

Kebebe, a man who lives under a bridge, visits to berate and shout at the landowner about greed and exploitation. Locals view him as mad, yet his critiques echo the growing anger in the community. His presence repeatedly challenges the official order.

A nearby family tends cows and sells grass at the market to buy flour, showing the fragile subsistence economy that underpins life in the village. Beletch’s family contributes to this economy through hard labor, while the harvest approaches. The looming harvest intensifies the tension between labor and control.

When the harvest finally arrives, locals wonder if they will receive a fair share as officials tally the crops. The landowner’s extraction continues, and the prospect of equity remains distant. The community watches with anxiety as the distribution of grain becomes a symbol of power.

A cow wanders into the flooding river, and Beletch drowns while trying to pull it back to safety. Her death represents a personal tragedy born from the harsh conditions of peasant life. The moment starkly underscores the costs of exploitation.

Kentu arrives at the distraught family to offer meagre condolence from the landowner and then laments his own limited fate. His gesture feels hollow against the backdrop of systemic injustice. The scene exposes the complicity of passivity within the feudal order.

Kebebe confronts the landowner and beats him to death in a raw act of rebellion against exploitation. The violence crystallizes the community’s anger, even as it invites brutal retaliation from authorities. The event pushes the film toward its grim climax.

Police stake out Kebebe’s dwelling under the bridge, only to discover that he has hanged himself. The authorities’ presence signals state power, but Kebebe’s self-murder becomes a bleak symbol of resistance that cannot be contained.

Officials cart away the harvest, and there is no word about whether the locals will receive their share. The dispossession compounds the villagers’ vulnerability and the sense that the systems of exploitation remain intact. The moment emphasizes the fragility of justice in the film's world.

Beletch’s brother impulsively chases after the grain cart, desperately trying to claim what is owed. The act highlights the villagers’ desperation in the face of exploitation and the limits of their power. It punctuates the ongoing cycle of loss and longing.

The film ends with a closing montage of people stating their jobs while images of harvested grain fill the screen. The juxtaposition underscores the community’s dependence on labor and the precariousness of harvest life under oppression. The final sequence suggests that life will continue within the same social order.

Even as immediate crises fade, the story leaves unresolved questions about fairness, justice, and the potential for collective resistance. It emphasizes the endurance of the peasant class and the structural inequalities that frame daily life. The ending invites reflection on what it would take to alter the system.