Films especially short and series entertain, inform, and educate by helping viewers have imaginary world through many ways. These films could be historical, scientific, human nature or other. As a result films differ one from another namely documentary, narrative, industrial, educational and so on. In the film industry many people play a vital role by contributing works as either writers, designers, directors, actors or other peoples.

Cinematography in Eritrea started during the liberation struggle by filming the war between the freedom fighters and colonizers, stage dramas of the cultural groups of the freedom fighters and other activities. The members of these cultural groups have been exerting much effort to entertain and increase the awareness of the public regarding the liberation struggle. And today these artists are capable of producing outstanding series like Biet Mn A’rish.

The writer of this outstanding film series, Ibrahim Ali (Akla), was a freedom fighter and has been actively participating in the film industry since independence. Actors in the film are experienced and promising young actors.

The storyline of the film revolves around the love between Saleh and Norela and the hardships they face from their community until they succeed in the end. These two characters are from the Tigre ethnic group, speaking a Tigre dialect of Gash Barka.

The production, creativity, sound, casting and location of the story have been highly appreciated by all viewers, including those who don’t understand the Tiger language. This shows the efforts put into making the film.

The performance by the young artists, like Norela and her colleagues, was and outstanding for first-timers.

A number of films have been produced in Eritrea, particularly in the Tigrigna language, and I watched most of them only to find a lot of incompetence. But that’s not the case in Biet Mn Arish. This film really played a remarkable role in developing the national film industry in general, and Tigre films in particular. But since no film or any work of art for that matter can be defined as absolutely flawless, I would like to present the following general remarks about the film.

The weekly episodes were just fifteen minutes and thus were too short for the audience.

The role of the religious leader in the film was noteworthy but the Qur’an quotations that he used were not notable to their religious content. I believe that religious quotations shouldn’t be used at random, and one should know and understand them very well before thinking of using them.

The characters which played the role of community leaders in the film had some weaknesses in the content of their words. When solving conflicts, disputes and misunderstandings, community leaders part their wisdom supposedly making use of the rich oral traditions and cultural values, but I don’t know why the producers or writers of the film ignored to include such rich verbal content.

Another point is the reaction of Osman’s wives to his new wedding with Nore’la. Even if the Muslim religion allows the marriage of one man to two or more women, it is still natural for the first wife to show some reaction. But in the film there is no such response. Even when he tells his first wife of his upcoming marriage, she just agrees and remains indifferent. If there was some kind of angry feedback or if she had broken a cup while drinking coffee, I think it would have given additional beauty to the film.

In traditional Tigre society, it was taboo for a woman to walk out of a meeting of elders without permission, as Nore’la does in the film.

When someone commits murder and disappears from his home village for 20 years, people tend to become curious and want to know what happened to him. But the film doesn’t address the issue. It would have been somehow instructive if the criminal could be brought to justice and receive his just punishment. But the kindness and mercy shown by Abu Saleh did reflect the Eritreans’ nature of forgiveness.

Even though the film has the above mentioned flaws, it is still a big leap forward in the Eritrean film industry. And I believe that from now on we won’t expect anything less in quality than Biet Mn Arish. And it is the responsibility of everyone in the film business to produce the best films possible.