Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: August 31st, 2021
New York (TADIAS) — This week Jessica Beshir’s award-winning new film ‘Faya Dayi’ will open at Lincoln Center in New York City.
The two-hour documentary (Amharic, Harari, and Oromiffa with English subtitles), which was released last year to enthusiastic international reviews, is a visual poetic reflection by the U.S.-based Ethiopian Mexican filmmaker on the old ceremonies and process of consuming one of Ethiopia’s most profitable farm products, khat (ጫት ch’at), a leaf chewed for centuries for religious meditations.
(Courtesy photo)
(Courtesy photo)
According to the press release Director Jessica Beshir will participate in Q&As following the film’s showing on Friday, September 3rd and Saturday, September 4th.
The announcement notes:
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.
For in-theater screenings, please review the Film at Lincoln Center in-theater safety and health policies here.
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If You Go:
For showtime and dates please visit filmlinc.org.