Academy Award Shortlist.

In her hypnotic documentary, Ethiopian-Mexican filmmaker Jessica Beshir explores the coexistence of everyday life and its mythical undercurrents. Though a deeply personal project—Beshir was forced to leave her hometown of Harar with her family as a teenager due to growing political strife—the film she returned to make about the city, its rural Oromo community of farmers, and the harvesting of the country’s most sought-after export (the euphoria-inducing khat plant) is neither a straightforward work of nostalgia nor an issue-oriented doc about a particular drug culture. Rather, she has constructed something dreamlike to illuminate the spiritual lives of people whose experiences often become fodder for ripped-from-the-headlines tales of migration.

“Filmed in luminous black and white, each image more beautiful than the last, Faya Dayi is not your typical documentary.”—RogerEbert.com

“A nonfiction work of sensory immersion that’s part anthropology, part poetry.”—Hollywood Reporter