On 10 March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board, including Max Edkins. His father, film-maker and anti-apartheid activist Don Edkins, and his brother, director Teboho Edkins, have created a short documentary titled An Open Field that explores grief through the lens of the rural Orthodox Christian Tewahedo community living near the crash site.
A Film Born from Therapy and Reluctance
Don Edkins said the idea came from a therapy session: “The one therapy session I went to, the therapist said: ‘Try to use your creative talent to deal with this, to help with the grieving process.’ And so I started making a film.” His son Teboho was initially reluctant: “It’s not a sexy subject. At first, I really didn’t want to do it at all.” The film, directed by Teboho and produced by Don, is not about the crash itself but about the structured mourning process of the Tewahedo community.
Community Mourning Rituals
Don visited the crash site annually and grew close to the locals. “They would come in their hundreds for the anniversary to grieve with us,” he said. In the village near Ejerie, about 28 miles from the airport, mourning lasts 40 days, followed by annual commemorations for seven years. “That’s when the healing starts taking place,” Don explained. The film captures a funeral held years after the crash, with men singing, beating kebero drums, and rattling tsenatsel shakers. “It is quite minimal. I tried to not make it very dramatic and emotional,” Teboho said, aiming to create a film that speaks to audiences unfamiliar with their story.
Sound and Imagery of Grief
The documentary uses raw footage, interviews, photographs, news clips, and text. Sound plays a crucial role: “We use lots of field recordings, we create layers that are not necessarily of the moment when you see the picture – to create sound that is expressive and shows what I’m feeling,” Teboho said. One scene features the security guard assigned to protect the crash site, which Don described as “a living graveyard.” The impact created a 10-metre deep, 40-metre long, and 28-metre wide crater, with wreckage found 300 metres away. The guard spent weeks picking up body parts, and a forensic expert identified bone remnants as skull or arm fragments. “That brings about talking about death and us understanding that he’s a guardian of our bones and our loved ones,” Teboho said.
Unresolved Justice and Corporate Accountability
The film also touches on the demand for justice from Boeing, manufacturer of the 737 Max. The Ethiopian Airlines crash was the second disaster involving the aircraft, following Lion Air flight JT610 in October 2018, which killed 189 people. Both were linked to the MCAS automated flight-control system. Don, with an activist background, wanted to address corporate greed, while Teboho sought solace. “Part of the tension of the project was: is it a film about Boeing or not?” Teboho said. In one scene, Don interviews Dr Getachew Tessema, father of the pilot Yared Getachew, who accuses Boeing of shifting blame: “They insisted to push [blame] to the captains, because they can’t defend themselves. They are dead.” Teboho noted a racist element in Western media: “It’s like: ‘African airline, African pilots, obviously they’ll fuck up.’”
A Unique Perspective
The Edkins family combines roles as grieving relatives, documentarians, journalists, and campaigners. “It’s a story that we’re uniquely positioned to tell,” Teboho said. “We didn’t watch the whole thing happen. We just felt it.” A Boeing spokesperson stated: “We will never forget the lives lost on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610 and their loved ones. Their memory and the hard lessons we learned from these accidents drive us every day to uphold our responsibility to all who depend on the safety and quality of our products.”
