“For a few days in March 2006, the Dutch punk-rock combo The Ex and legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Gétatchèw Mèkuria went into the studio together to work on 11 tracks for a CD entitled Moa Anbessa (Terp Records), considered to be the first ethio-punk album (the composition are nearly all taken from the tradionnal Ethiopian repertory). A handful of concerts, including the closing event of the Banlieues Bleues Fesival, allowed the artists to hone the work and present it to an extremely enthusiastic public. The film takes us back and forth from the atmosphere of concentration in the studio to the energy of the stage. The shooting conditions for each situation are both opposite and complementary: contemplative and in the heart of the action for the first, dynamic and peripheral to the musicians for the second. The members of The Ex don’t speack much Amharic and Getatchew understands just few words of English. Communication lies elsewhere, in the sensory understanding of musical solutions, energy and interpretation — in short, in the immediacy of the pleasure of creating together. That’s what I wanted to capture in this film.” —Stéphane Jourdain