Faya Dayi (2021)

Jessica Beshir's Faya Dayi is a trancelike documentary film about the khat industry in Ethiopia. Synopses online repeatedly refer to this film as "hallucinogenic" as well as "about religious rituals related to khat". It is neither of these things. This is a film about economics, labor, and ecology and the effect of this particular industry on different generations of people in Ethiopia. It is not about religion, and the film is neither surreal nor hallucinogenic. It's gorgeously filmed in black and white, and it is meditative and trance-like in a way that recalls the work of Terrence Malick. Even calling this a documentary feels restrictive. The people in this film are real people, but, like... actors are also real people. The characters in this film are played by themselves in a way that feels reminiscent of Chloé Zhao's work, even if the filmmaking style is much more Malick.