Faya Dayi
New Directors/New Films 2021
April 28 - May 8, 2021
In her hypnotic documentary feature, Ethopian-Mexican filmmaker Jessica Beshir explores the coexistence of everyday life and its mythical undercurrents, focusing on her hometown of Harar, its rural Oromo community of farmers, and the harvesting of the country’s most sought-after export: the euphoria-inducing khat plant.
Closes Thursday!
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. A Janus Films release. A New Directors/New Films 2021 selection.
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Shot in a rural Ethiopian town, this tone poem settles into a trance-like flow.
—Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times
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