A documentary by Eyakem Gulilat & Evan Clayburg · In production
Sacred Grounds
A journey into Ethiopian coffee culture.
Sacred Grounds is a documentary about coffee, memory, inheritance, and belonging. Moving between the United States, Ethiopia, and the histories carried across them, the film follows three lives connected through coffee. Eyakem Gulilat carries the Ethiopian coffee ceremony into communities across America before returning to Ethiopia for the first time in nearly forty years. At Shone Coffee Farm, Dr. Markos has returned to his family's land following the death of his father, taking responsibility for a legacy he did not expect to inherit. And Faris, a Yemeni American coffee professional, carries another history of coffee—one shaped by Yemen, migration, family, and the making of home in America. Together, their stories ask what we inherit, what we carry with us, and how coffee can become a path back to people, place, and belonging.
Directors
Eyakem Gulilat & Evan Clayburg
Cinematography
Evan Clayburg
Produced by
BunaCine Productions, Tulsa · independent
Status
In production · preliminary trailer online
Shot in
Limmu, Ethiopia · ceremonies across the United States
“Sacred Grounds is more than a film — it is a platform for connection, healing, and the rediscovery of shared humanity through a cup of coffee.”
Support the film
Every bag of Midrib helps finish it.
Sacred Grounds is independently produced. Midrib's roasted coffee is the film's limited-edition line — proceeds go directly toward production — alongside limited-edition prints and the support of donors and sponsors. Buying a bag is the simplest way in.
The filmmakers
Eyakem Gulilat
Born in Ethiopia, Eyakem makes photographs about belonging — how time, memory and place shape who we become, and what shifts when a life is seen through a camera. He holds an MFA from the University of Oklahoma, has been artist-in-residence at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, Newspace in Portland and Light Work in Syracuse, and received a National Endowment for the Arts grant with the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa. He is a Tulsa Artist Fellow.
eyakem.com →
Evan Clayburg
A documentary filmmaker and graphic artist based in Tulsa, Evan's films centre on ritual, music and the ties that hold a community together. His most recent feature, Down Home Blues (2026), follows the family of musicians keeping a historic Oklahoma juke joint alive; before that, Up From the Earth, Out Through the People (2024). He co-founded the Third Space Art Collective in Davis, California, and has lived and worked as an artist in Brazil, Mexico and Japan.
clayburgcreate.com →Production notes
Shot in two registers: the ceremonies, filmed across the United States as they happened, and the harvest at Shone, where the camera sits where the work is and the work sets the pace. No re-enactments and no drone-and-voiceover travelogue.
Screenings for museums and universities are booked directly with us and travel with a coffee ceremony — the film and the cup in one sitting, which is how it was always meant to be shown. The trailer online is preliminary; its music is a temporary track.
Stills · Limmu, harvest 2024
