Press Release Criterion Press Release: Faya dayi (2021) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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A sublime work of personal vision, the debut feature by the Mexican Ethiopian filmmaker Jessica Beshir is a hypnotic documentary immersion in the world of Ethiopia’s Oromo community, 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 influence of the drug itself, Faya dayi unfurls as intoxicating, trance state cinema, capturing intimate moments in the existence 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 director’s exquisite monochrome cinematography—each frame a masterpiece sculpted from light and shadow—and the film’s time-bending, elliptical editing create a ravishing sensory experience that hovers between consciousness and dreaming.

FILM INFO​

• Ethiopia, United States, Qatar
• 2021
• 118 minutes
• Black and White/Color
• 1.78:1
• Amharic, Harari, Oromo
• Spine #1141
  
  

  DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES​

  • New 4K digital master, approved by director Jessica Beshir, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Three short films by Beshir: He Who Dances on Wood (2016); Heroin (2017); and Hairat (2017), featuring an introduction by Beshir
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Yasmina Price
    
    New design by Nessim Higson
    
    August 30, 2022

 

[Ronald Epstein]

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