Festivals - Sundance Film Festival 2021 : Faya Dayi will have its world premiere

By Mulder, 25 december 2020

Khat, a flowering plant with leaves that produce a stimulant effect when chewed, has been harvested in Ethiopia for centuries. With social significance in communities around the world, khat is a cash crop, sustaining so many who have worked in the fields for generations. However familiar the work is, some young people who have grown up in its shadow want more. They consider leaving home and all they have ever known for something new, faraway, and, while perhaps more economically beneficial, lonelier and more isolating.

In her debut documentary feature, Jessica Beshir takes us to a world of beauty and lyricism that must be seen to be truly experienced. A spiritual journey with mesmerizing photography that channels a khat-like high, Faya Dayi brings together the ethereal and the material, tying another plane of existence to the reality of this world, with its real people whose destiny is bound to their home, their land, and what it produces.

Synopsis :
A spiritual journey into the highlands of Harar, immersed in the rituals of khat, a leaf Sufi Muslims chewed for centuries for religious meditations - and Ethiopia's most lucrative cash crop today.

Faya Dayi (Ethiopia/U.S.A./Qatar)
Written and Directed by Jessica Beshir
Produced by Jessica Beshir
Cinematography : Jessica Beshir
Edited by Jeanne Applegate, Dustin Waldman
Distributed by Feyatey, LLC
Release date : January 30, 2021 (Sundance)
Running time : 120 minutes

Premiere : jan. 30 - 9:00pm // Second screening : feb. 1 - 4:00pm (local time)

(Source : press release)