Faya Dayi – Bianca Taal

A rhythmic rustling of khat leaves, the clickety-clack of a train in the far distance, curtains waving in the wind. Yet, what sounds like a peaceful and happy place is far from it. In a community in Harar, Ethiopia, growing coffee has been replaced by the cultivation of khat leaves. The coffee doesn’t taste the same and all colours have disappeared from the world, it seems.

It’s a film that won’t let go of me − it’s contrasts keep lingering. Faya Dayi stems from a personal place, and filmmaker Jessica Beshir lovingly and respectfully enters the lives of mostly young people in the community, marked by hope, sorrow and longing. However, in the backdrop the oppression and menace that mark the region are omnipresent.

A film that moves between harsh realities and khat induced fantasies, between planting seeds, growing crops and forced uprooting, between life and survival, beauty and violence, between a window that is, literally, opened and closed. I’ll look out that window for a bit longer, lingering on the rich experience that Faya Dayi offers.

Written by Bianca Taal