From the touring composer : elijah jamal asani is an anti-discilplinary nigerian-american artist bred in chicago & based near the river wimahl. as a multi-instrumentalist ,, he navigates soft nuances through new colours & infinite ((sweet)) everythings.

In her hypnotic documentary feature, 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: a film that uses light, texture, and sound to illuminate the spiritual lives of people whose experiences often become fodder for ripped-from-the-headlines tales of migration.

"Unlike any other documentary you're likely to see." — Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

"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

"The feel is dreamlike, like a falling dusk, even when the concerns are concrete." — Nicolas Rapold, New York Times

"A nonfiction work of sensory immersion that's part anthropology, part poetry." — Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter

"Transcending categories, 'Faya Dayi' achieves a deeply spiritual and contemplative viewing experience." — Dustin Chang, ScreenAnarchy

"Mixing and matching her approach to the material, Beshir ... creates an evocative landscape where despair and possibility intertwine." — Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Hammer to Nail

"Wanders lovely, liminal spaces between narrative and fairytale, between documentary film and something looser, something personally vérité." — Dom Sinacola, Paste Magazine

"The best kind of documentary, one that eschews standard, prefabricated forms and instead finds the mesmerizing beauty in the quotidian." — Daniel Gorman