Safi Faye: Man sa yay | I, your mother - Berlinale Forum Special Fiktionsbescheinigung 2023

Safi Faye

Man sa yay | I, your mother

Berlinale

Forum Special Fiktionsbescheinigung 2023

Senegalese filmmaker/anthropologist Safi Faye spent the 1979-1980 academic year at the faculty of the Freie Universität in Berlin as a guest professor.* While in Germany, with an eye on the experiences of expatriate residents, in 1980 she directed Man Sa Yay (I, Your Mother). The film relates the experiences of a Senegalese student in Berlin during an exchange of letters with his mother at home, revealing his cultural isolation. Safi Faye would continue her ties with Germany with the co-production of Mossane, released in 1996, with Jürgen Jürges as the director of photography.

The Berlinale Forum Special Fiktionsbescheinigung 2023 features this 1980 film, co-produced with ZDF.

 

Safi Faye
Man sa yay | I, your mother
Federal Republic of Germany / Senegal 1980
with Moussa J. Sarr, Yay Sokhna, Yvonne Nafi
https://www.berlinale.de/en/2023/programme/202314603.html

Description
“Sooner or later, I’ll return to where my other self is.” The everyday experiences of a Senegalese student in West Berlin are marked by a sense of uneasiness in Europe and his family’s expectations in the form of a constant stream of letters.

*Drawn from Françoise Pfaff. Safi Faye in Twenty-Five Black African Filmmakers.