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"Filmed in luminous black and white, each image more beautiful than the last, Faya Dayi is not your typical documentary." —Sheila O'Malley, RogerEbert.com

"Invites the mind and soul with its visual grandeur, and keeps the viewer engaged with a tension and mystery that seems to be lurking beneath its surface."—Tambay Obenson, IndieWire

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.

Winner, Grand Jury, Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker, and Emerging Artist Awards, 2021 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Winner, Audience Award, 2021 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
Official Selection, 2021 Sundance, Seattle, True/False, New Directors/New Films, and BlackStar film festivals.
94th Oscars Shortlist, Documentary Feature