Locations
Where to film in Ethiopia
From 125 metres below sea level in the Danakil to peaks above 4,500 metres in Simien — with permit routes, access notes, seasons and travel times for each.
Where to film in Ethiopia
Ethiopia's most filmed locations are Addis Ababa, the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, the Danakil Depression in Afar, the Omo Valley, the Simien and Bale Mountains, the walled city of Harar, the castles of Gondar, Lake Tana and the Blue Nile Falls at Bahir Dar, the Axumite stelae in Tigray, the Rift Valley lakes and the coffee forests around Jimma. Each has its own permitting authority, access conditions and seasonal window. Film Ethiopia has fixers resident across all regional states.
Addis Ababa
Everything starts here. Bole International Airport is the best-connected hub in the region, the crew base is deep, the equipment is in town, and the government offic…
Lalibela
Lalibela is not a ruin. It is a working religious complex where the churches carved out of the rock eight hundred years ago still hold daily services, and where the …
The Danakil Depression
The Danakil is the most visually extreme place in Ethiopia and the least forgiving. Ground temperatures regularly exceed anything your gear was designed for, the sul…
The Omo Valley
The Omo is the most photographed and most misrepresented part of Ethiopia. Crews arrive, pay per frame, shoot decorated bodies for two hours and leave with material …
The Simien Mountains
Simien is where Ethiopia's landscape does its most cinematic work: thousand-metre escarpments, cloud pouring over the ridge line, and troops of several hundred gelad…
The Bale Mountains
Bale is the quieter counterpart to Simien and, for a natural history unit, often the more productive one. The plateau is a vast open Afro-alpine moorland where a wol…
Harar
Harar is the visual opposite of the northern highland circuit: hot, close, brightly painted and Islamic, with a rhythm of its own. The alleys are too narrow for a do…
Gondar
Gondar gives you architecture that surprises audiences, because it does not match what they expect Ethiopia to look like. Stone castles with towers and battlements, …
Bahir Dar and Lake Tana
Tana is where Ethiopia looks tropical: palm-lined lakeshore, papyrus tankwa boats, pelicans, and monasteries hidden in forest on the islands. It is one of the easies…
Axum and Tigray
Tigray holds Ethiopia's oldest layer: pre-Christian temples, Aksumite stelae, and churches carved into vertical rock that you reach by climbing. It is also the regio…
The Rift Valley Lakes
If a production needs strong Ethiopian material without a week of travel, this is where we send it. Three hours south of Addis you are in acacia savannah beside a la…
Jimma and the Coffee Forests
Every coffee film wants to shoot the origin, and this is it: arabica growing wild in the shade of a montane forest, harvested by hand by families who have done it fo…
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