BIO

Dagmawi Abebe (Dag) is an Ethiopian born-American Writer, Director, and Editor who immigrated to the United States at the age of 10 and grew up in Virginia. There, he attended the University of Virginia where he majored in Physics and minored in Film Studies. His interest is in creating films that highlight unsung heroes and forgotten communities. After serving as a Lead Editor on the Warner Brothers sponsored feature film, "SAMIR," in 2018, Dag went on to co-direct the Warner Brothers sponsored film, "Voodoo Macbeth," which won the Industry Choice Best Feature award at the 2021 Dances with Films Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Director at the 2021 Sedona International Film Festival. His most recent short film, "The Ball Method," received the 2018 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Production Grant. It stars Kiersey Clemons ("Dope"), Wallace Langham ("CSI: Crime Scene Investigation"), and Kyle Secor ("Veronica Mars). It premiered at the 2020 Pan African Film Festival and went on to win the Jury Award for Best African American Student Filmmaker at the 2020

Directors Guild of America Student Film Awards.

For the past three years, Dag has been working in the film industry serving various roles in the Post-Production department across various formats. He  worked at the trailer and advertising house Mob Scene Creative as an Assistant Editor before transitioning to the television world at All3Media where he worked on shows airing on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and Hulu. Currently, he works as a Post-Production Supervisor at 20th Digital Studio under Disney Television Studios for the Bite Size Halloween Series and feature films streaming on Hulu.

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Being from the land with 13 months of sunshine, Dag aspires to create work in his home country Ethiopia and share the countless untold stories with the rest of the world. In 2020, along with three other Ethiopian filmmakers, Dag

co-founded the non-profit organization Habesha Film Association (HFA) as a way to create a bridge between

the Horn of Africa and the global filmmaking community. He is on the Industry Experience Roster at the Motion Picture Editor's Guild of America and a graduate of the University of Southern California Film and TV Production MFA Program. Dag currently resides in Los Angeles and is represented by Evan Anglin at Zero Gravity Management.

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PAST FESTIVALS AND HONORS

 Directors Guild of America Student Jury Prize
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant Recipient   
Catalina Film Festival - Best Director
Charlotte Black Film Festival - Best Director
Harlem International Film Festival - Best Film
Sedona International Film Festival - Director’s Choice Award
Cleveland International Film Festival - American Independents Competition

Tribeca Film Festival
Pan African Film Festival (3 years)
Toronto Black Film Festival
Black Harvest Film Festival
Honolulu African American Film Festival
Los Angeles International Film Festival
Bronze lens Film Festival
African American Film Marketplace
Dances with Films
Sedona Film Festival
Cleveland Film Festival
Harlem International Film Festival
New York International Film Festival
Charlotte Black Film Festival
American Black Film Festival
Heartland International Film Festival
Montreal International Film Festival
San Diego International Film Festival
St. Louis International Film Festival
Ojay Film Festival
Monadnock International Film Festival
Sonoma Film Festival
Catalina Film Festival
Big Apple Film Festival
Vail Film Festival
11th Lake County Film Festival