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.

Sheri Linden of The Hollywood Reporter calls it "mesmerizing...a nonfiction work of sensory immersion that's part anthropology, part poetry."

Stay tuned after the screening for a Q&A with director Jessica Beshir moderated by Josh Siegel for Film at Lincoln Center and MOMA’s New Directors/New Films 2021.

(September 22 & 25-27; Oregon only)

Jessica Beshir, Director