Faya Dayi

Jessica Beshir's 2021 documentary is about a stimulant plant grown in Ethiopia and the life built around it. It has become the country's most profitable crop, and its harvest, transport and consumption set the daily order of a whole region. The documentary gives no information. The camera is in the fields, the warehouses and the groups that gather at night; the sounds and images attach not to a narrative but to a state. The sense of time the stimulant produces has passed into the film's form. It was shot in black and white with high contrast. In the background the wish of the young to leave the country is constantly heard; the tension between staying and going is the only concrete line. Beshir filmed over a decade. Who it's for: those who like poetic documentary and slow cinema. Who it's not for: viewers expecting information about the subject; the film explains nothing and the pace is very low.