| Escaping A Dictator |
GENRE: Biographical Documentary.
STATUS: In production. A short film documentary, Escaping A Dictator has already been filmed and produced. This will eventually be part of a feature length documentary.
LOGLINE: The true story of a Hungarian born family settled in Ethiopia who learn that Emperor Haile Selasie has ordered their assassination, which forces them to either accept their demise or escape the country leaving everything they have behind.
COMPANY NOTES: Yellow Brick Studio has joined with filmmaker Rick Bernico to aid in the distribution of a short film documentary that he is producing, Escaping A Dictator, which is a production of his company, Water Snake Productions, and his photography studio, Hawaii Profiles.
The Inspiration
Rick Bernico graduated from Hawaii Pacific University (logo is seen in the inset photo) in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Visual Communication. The faculty editor of the student newspaper, Kalamalama, was his journalism teacher and became a very good friend of Rick’s. Dr. Larry LeDoux and his wife, Judy, would have him come to their farm to see their aviary and also come over for holiday barbecues. Through LeDoux, Rick would meet a family named the Makks. Americo, Eva, and their son AB Makk and his wife, Silvia, were famous painters, but Rick did not know how famous they were until years later (Americo would eventually pass away, Silvia divorced AB, and Eva would develop cancer). Knowing that he was a photographer and graphic designer, as well as a personal friend of Larry’s, they asked Rick to help them photograph some of their paintings and make appraisals for the artwork. On one occasion, while Rick was at their house, Eva told him that her family personally knew Haile Selassie and that he had ordered their execution, which forced them to escape Ethiopia. Rick did not know who Haile Selassie, so the impact of what she told him did not sink in. While Rick was also enrolled in the Los Angeles Film School – specifically in the Online Digital Filmmaking program – he attended a class that required him to make a short, ten-minute documentary. He thought of the Makks and what Eva had told him and decided to interview her. Rick spent five hours recording the interview and he was astounded by everything she related. Then when he did the research to put the documentary together, Rick realized that this story, the story of the Makks, was a truly remarkable tale and needed to be told to the world. The fact that this amazing 90-year-old woman was going through cancer treatment increased the urgency of telling the story soon.
Rick Bernico Graduating From The LA Film School On 9/27/24
The Synopsis
Escaping A Dictator is a fairy tale. A true-life tale as told by a two-year-old little girl in a 90-year-old woman’s body. It is a fantastic tale of love, determination, the horrors or war, an execution decree, and an unbelievable escape. The amazing, Hungarian-born, Dr. Bertalan Holusa, survived WWI, despite being injured and contracting malaria. He and his wife, Elizabeth, bought a coffee plantation in 1930’s Ethiopia and became good friends with Emperor Haile Selassie I. After Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Emperor Selassie was forced to order the execution of Dr. Holusa and his entire family, including Eva, his daughter. This is a near-tragic fairy tale that spans a century, three generations, three continents, and over six different countries. Escaping A Dictator shows but a small portion of the enigmatic lives of Emperor Haile Selassie, Dr. Holusa, and the remarkable Holusa/Makk family.
“Checkmate” By Americo Makk
About Haile Selassie
Haile Selassie was crowned emperor in 1930 but exiled during World War II after leading the resistance to the Italian invasion. He was reinstated in 1941 and sought to modernize the country over the next few decades through social, economic and educational reforms. He ruled until 1974, when famine, unemployment and political opposition forced him from office. Haile Selassie I was Ethiopia’s 225th and last emperor, serving from 1930 until his overthrow by the Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1974. The longtime ruler traced his line back to Menelik I, who was credited with being the child of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. He was born in a mud hut in Ejersa Gora on July 23, 1892. Originally named Lij Tafari Makonnen, he was the only surviving and legitimate son of Ras Makonnen, the governor of Harar. Among his father’s important allies was his cousin, Emperor Menelik II, who did not have a male heir to succeed him. Tafari seemed like a possible candidate when, following his father’s death in 1906, he was taken under the wing of Menelik. In 1913, however, after the passing of Menelik II, it was the emperor’s grandson, Lij Yasu, not Tafari, who was appointed as emperor. But Yasu, who maintained a close association with Islam, never gained favor with Ethiopia’s majority Christian population. As a result Tafari became the face of the opposition, and in 1916 he took power from Lij Yasu and imprisoned him for life. The following year Menelik II’s daughter, Zauditu, became empress, and Tafari was named regent and heir apparent to the throne. For a country trying to gain its foothold in the young century and curry favor with the West, the progressive Tafari came to symbolize the hopes and dreams of Ethiopia’s younger population. In 1923 he led Ethiopia into the League of Nations. The following year, he traveled to Europe, becoming the first Ethiopian ruler to go abroad. His power only grew. In 1928 he appointed himself king, and two years later, after the death of Zauditu, he was made emperor and assumed the name Haile Selassie (“Might of the Trinicty”). Over the next four decades, Haile Selassie presided over a country and government that was an expression of his personal authority. His reforms greatly strengthened schools and the police, and he instituted a new constitution and centralized his own power. In 1936 he was forced into exile after Italy invaded Ethiopia. Haile Selassie became the face of the resistance as he went before the League of Nations in Geneva for assistance, and eventually secured the help of the British in reclaiming his country and reinstituting his powers as emperor in 1941. Haile Selassie again moved to try to modernize his country. In the face of a wave of anti-colonialism sweeping across Africa, he granted a new constitution in 1955, one that outlined equal rights for his citizens under the law, but conversely did nothing to diminish Haile Selassie’s own powers. By the early 1970s famine, ever-worsening unemployment and increasing frustration with the government’s inability to respond to the country’s problems began to undermine Haile Selassie’s rule. In February 1974 mutinies broke out in the army over low pay, while a secessionist guerrilla war in Eritrea furthered his problems. Haile Selassie was eventually ousted from power in a coup and kept under house arrest in his palace until his death in 1975. Reports initially circulated claiming that he had died of natural causes, but later evidence revealed that he had probably been strangled to death on the orders of the new government. In 1992 Haile Selassie’s remains were discovered, buried under a toilet in the Imperial Palace. In November 2000 the late emperor received a proper burial when his body was laid to rest in Addis Ababa’s Trinity Cathedral.¹
Rick Bernico’s
¹Biography paraphrased from https://www.biography.com/political-figures/haile-selassie-i
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