Directed by Jessica Beshir • 2021 • Ethiopia, United States, Qatar
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.
Up Next in 21st Century Cinema
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Declarations of Love
Directed by Tiff Rekem • 2022 • United States
A fragmentary rumination on an aging father figure and his nearness to the gender-reveal-party fire that scorched the San Bernardino foothills in 2020.
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ear for eye
Directed by debbie tucker green • 2021 • United Kingdom
Starring Lashana Lynch, Tosin Cole, Danny SapaniWith this riveting adaptation of her acclaimed play, debbie tucker green pushes the boundaries of stage and screen alike. Dynamic, absorbing, and visually inventive, EAR FOR EYE traces racial...
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Maman Brigitte
Directed by Ayanna Dozier • 2022 • United States
MAMAN BRIGITTE stitches together the intimacy of a private ritual involving the Voudou loa Maman Brigitte (who governst the barrier between the living and the dead) with the sounds of the body (spitting, running, vomiting, etc.). These “interior” ...
