Faya Dayi

Q&A with Jessica Beshir

A sublime work of trance-state cinema, the debut feature by the Mexican Ethiopian filmmaker Jessica Beshir is a hypnotic immersion in the world of rural Ethiopia, a place where one commodity—khat, a euphoria-inducing plant once prized for its supposedly mystical properties—holds sway over the rituals and rhythms of everyday life.

As if under the intoxicating influence of the drug itself, Faya Dayi unfurls as a hallucinogenic cinematic reverie, capturing hushed, intimate moments in the existences of everyone from the harvesters of the crop to people lost in its narcotic haze to a desperate but determined younger generation searching for an escape from the region’s political strife.

The film’s exquisite monochrome cinematography—each frame a masterpiece sculpted from light and shadow—and time-bending, elliptical editing create a ravishing sensory experience that hovers between consciousness and dreaming. “Faya Dayi is predominantly a mood piece that seeks to evoke the leaf’s own perception-altering properties.” (Variety)

“In eschewing directness of intent for the artful massaging of space, sound and rhythm, Beshir’s film… stakes a richer claim to our sense of the place and the effect of its most lucrative crop.” (LA Times)

Jessica Beshir won The Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2022 Independent Spirit Awards, “presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition.”

more info at this website: www.janusfilms.com/films/2035

In Amharic, Harari, and Oromo

Ithaca Premiere
Subtitled