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 many who have worked in the fields for generations. Filmed in luminous black-and-white, “Faya Dayi” traces the harvesting of khat, by young men in the fields. They sing the title song, a hymn, in a call and response fashion. One man recalls growing coffee, but that changed, and was replaced by khat, which has become lucrative. Beshir’s film is best when it takes an anthropological approach showing dozens of noisy men working, cutting, bundling, tying, and weighing the khat to transport it to market.
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.
Jessica Beshir is a Mexican Ethiopian director, producer, and cinematographer. She is a recipient of the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund grant. Faya Dayi is her feature debut.