A 20-minute documentary on Ethiopia’s 2007 millennium celebration, created by Mercer Island High School graduates Ross Laing and Alex Baron, aired on Ethiopian Television (ETV) this past fall. Laing and Baron produced and shot the documentary, “Generation to Generation,” while visiting the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, during the country’s millennium celebration in September 2007 (Ethiopia follows the ancient Coptic calendar, which marks the year 2000 in our 2007).

Using the millennium celebrations as a backdrop, the film focuses on the social, political and environmental changes in modern Ethiopia.

“We tried to describe the mood in Addis Ababa as the city prepared for the millennium celebrations,” said Laing.

On Sept. 15, 2008, “Generation to Generation” was broadcast on ETV, the only TV network in Ethiopia, as part of a week-long retrospective on the 2007 millennium.

“We’re really happy that [the film] aired in Ethiopia since that was our desired audience, but we’d be happy for it to do the festival circuit in 2009,” said Laing, who plans to begin applying to festivals next month. “Ideally, the Seattle International Film Festival would be great, as well as Hot Docs Festival, Silverdocs and others.”

Laing is currently studying video editing in Los Angeles. Baron has spent the past year in Nanjing, China, editing a scientific journal for Nanjing University. The Reporter ran a feature story on the Islanders’ documentary project in August 2007.

A trailer for “Generation to Generation” can be viewed on Laing’s Web site: www.atelier-atelier.com.