AIFF 2021: Faya Dayi

Jessica Beshir's Faya Dayi is an extremely beautiful documentary slash drama which takes place in Ethiopia and gives us a glance into the production and distribution of khat, a stimulant leaf. Legend has it that khat was found by Sufi Imams in search for eternity. 

    

Beshir's docudrama is shot in beautiful black and white, taking us into a hallucinatory journey through intimate conversations and monologue voice-overs which describe how this particular drug has been affecting Ethiopeans that are directly or indirectly connected to its commerce and use. We meet all sorts of people, all of whom remain nameless, from ones who chew khat every day all day, ending up losing themselves as they become addicted to the trip, to those who desire to escape this dreamy yet deceitful Ethiopean reality and emigrate to Europe. 

    As Faya Dayi proves, however, this escape can be offered to youths and elders alike in the form of khat which in the last decades has moved outside of the Imam circles and has entered the mainstream becoming an addiction for simple citizens; those who want to forget the hard times and struggles of their everyday life and enter Merkhana: the high which is achieved when one chews the khat leaves.

  Faya Dayi is a journey - or a trip if you like - itself. The film could easily be at least 20 minutes shorter and its impact would be the same, however its stunning photography is rather impressive. The camera gets lost in quiet moments in nature or among people but it never actually tells a particular person's tale. It is a combination of images (close-ups, grand landscape shots as well as small details) but there is not a story that the documentary aims to tell. Beshir has instead chosen to stay back and let the mesmeric, haunting scenes take the reins and carry the audience along to this hypnotising presentation of a depressing reality.

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