Faya Dayi
The documentary's aesthetics strikingly channel the euphoric feelings induced by Ethopia's top cash crop.
Faya Dayi
In her hypnotic documentary feature, Ethiopian-Mexican filmmaker Jessica Beshir explores the coexistence of everyday life and its mythical undercurrents. Though a deeply personal project—Beshir was forced to leave her hometown of Harar with her family as a teenager due to growing political strife—the film she returned to make about the city, its rural Oromo community of farmers, and the harvesting of the country’s most sought-after export (the euphoria-inducing khat plant) is neither a straightforward work of nostalgia nor an issue-oriented doc about a particular drug culture. Rather, she has constructed something dreamlike: a film that uses light, texture, and sound to illuminate the spiritual lives of people whose experiences often become fodder for ripped-from-the-headlines tales of migration.
Genre
Documentary,
Women and Film,
2021 IDA Documentary Awards Nominees
Web Site
Runtime
120
Language
Amharic
Director
Jessica Beshir
Awards:
Nominee, Grand Jury Prize ~ World Cinema: Documentary, Sundance Film Festival
Played at
Santa Monica
Monica Film Center
West L.A.
Laemmle Virtual Cinema
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