Faya Dayi

[Played Oct. 29 via The House of Djeli and available on the Criterion Channel.] Awesome cinematography highlights Jessica Beshir's captivating, award-winning, black-and-white, informative, languid-paced, poetical, artistic, thought-provoking, 2-hour, 2021 documentary that focuses on the euphoria-producing, highly-addictive, lucrative khat plant, the local Ethiopian people, such as 14-year-old Mohammed Arif, in Harar who harvest it and bundle the leaves for sale, and the myriad of Sufi Muslims who chew khat to escape their mundane, harsh, ever-present suffocating reality amidst political turmoil.
|
|
|