The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates
International Day of Rural Women - Oct 15
Achieving gender equality and empowering women is not only the right thing to do but is a critical ingredient in the fight against extreme poverty, hunger and climate change.
Women are responsible for half of the world’s food production while working as environmental and biodiversity stewards.
Under the theme “The Rise of Rural Women: Building Resilient Futures with Beijing+30,” this International Day promoted by UN Women seeks to shed light on the inequalities they still face; advocate for their recognition and participation in decision-making; demand stronger social protection systems; and reduce the digital divide. The commemoration aligns with the spirit of Beijing+30, a global plan for gender equality focused on eradicating poverty, achieving climate justice, and ensuring the full participation of all women and girls in sustainable development. Wherever they live. (https://www.un.org/en/observances/rural-women-day)Safi Faye, ethnologist, cineaste, peasant, mother—she claims these intersecting selves with pride. This simultaneity of identities exemplifies the multiplicity of her life in the same way that she reflects them in her films and their characters. Hence, such a portrait shows the interconnection of her experiences—whether in Africa, the countryside, Europe, while demystifying conceptions of African women as a whole—and in particular rural-dwelling African women. Throughout her life and through her films, empowering, giving voice, has been her leitmotif.
What her films show is that the lives of peasants do matter. They have agency, a voice, stories to tell and ideas about life and living. When Safi went there to study and film in the 1970s, she went as a native daughter, as she proudly states, “je suis paysanne” (I am a peasant). During the film production process she integrates the camera into the scene. The native daughter has come to film’ she sits my place and listens. And so does the camera.
She ends Kaddu Beykat (197é) in this way: “This letter is from me, all the rest is from my farmer family; I want to thank them…These are the words of the peasant, kaddu beykat. I dedicate my film to my grandfather, who was a farmer all of his life and who died eleven days after the shooting. I end my letter with a warm farewell.”
Safi Faye’s films are first and foremost a homage to the peasantry, the rural world, of people whose tool for survival and making a living is the land: to work is to draw from and replenish the earth, the terrain, the soil.
What her films show is that the lives of peasants do matter. They have agency, a voice, stories to tell and ideas about life and living. When Safi went there to study and film in the 1970s, she went as a native daughter, as she proudly states, “je suis paysanne” (I am a peasant). During the film production process she integrates the camera into the scene. The native daughter has come to film’ she sits my place and listens. And so does the camera.
She ends Kaddu Beykat (197é) in this way: “This letter is from me, all the rest is from my farmer family; I want to thank them…These are the words of the peasant, kaddu beykat. I dedicate my film to my grandfather, who was a farmer all of his life and who died eleven days after the shooting. I end my letter with a warm farewell.”
Safi Faye’s films are first and foremost a homage to the peasantry, the rural world, of people whose tool for survival and making a living is the land: to work is to draw from and replenish the earth, the terrain, the soil.
Excerpted from:“I dared to make a film”: A Tribute to the Life and Work of Safi Faye
by Beti Ellerson, Black Camera:
An International Film Journal 15. 1 (Fall 2023).