Harpur Cinema Presents: Faya Dayi
Jessica Beshir, Ethiopia, 2021, 120 min
Friday, April 1 and Sunday, April 3: Lecture Hall 6, 7:30 PM. Doors open at 7:00 pm. $4 single Admission.
Face masks are required of all attendees, regardless of vaccination status, in accordance with University public health policies. All University public health policies will be enforced
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 is 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 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.
