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Showing posts with label Safi Faye. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Safi Faye. Show all posts

01 May 2025

The African Women in Cinema Blog Celebrates International Workers' Day : Safi Faye's "Fad,Jal"


African Women in Cinema Blog Celebrates International Workers' Day : Safi Faye's Fad,Jal

Safi Faye: "Fad signifies “Arrive” and Jal means “Work”. “Work” because when you arrive at this farming village called Fadial, you must work. When you work, you’re happy, and if you don’t work, people will mock you".

Synopsis : Fad,jal (1979, 1h52, Sénégal, France)

Fad,Jal is a Serere Senegalese village. At school, children learn, in French, the grammar and history of France. Villagers practice their religion in a church, a vestige of colonialism.

At the foot of a tree, the ancestor and a griot recount to the children in Wolof, the history of the village—its customs, its tradition, its creation. An opportunity to discover the artisanal trades, agricultural techniques and the difficulty of exploiting the land because of the drought. Meanwhile, as a result of the recently-implemented government policy,  the Serere are confronted on a daily basis with the appropriation of their land, previously transmitted by oral agreement among the villagers.

Fad,Jal est un village sénégalais sérère. A l'école, les enfants apprennent, en français, la grammaire et l'histoire de France. Les villageois pratiquent leur religion dans une église, vestige du colonialisme.

Au pied d'un fromager, l'ancêtre et un griot racontent en wolof l'histoire du village aux enfants, sa création, ses coutumes, ses traditions. C'est l'occasion de découvrir les métiers artisanaux, les techniques agricoles et la difficulté d'exploiter les terres à cause de la sècheresse. En parallèle, le quotidien des sérères est confronté à la politique gouvernementale qui s'approprie désormais les terres, auparavant transmises oralement entre les villageois.

22 February 2025

Remembering Safi Faye (1943-2023) - Safi Faye’s cinematic practice as womanist work

Remembering Safi Faye (1943-2023)
Safi Faye’s cinematic practice as womanist work*

The womanist work in Safi Faye’s cinematic practice empowers, supports and promotes women in tandem with upholding the fight for racial, ethnic, social, political, and economic justice in one’s society and throughout the world.

Je ne suis pas du tout féministe. Je suis féminisante. Je defends le cas des femmes… I am not at all feminist. I am womanistic, I defend the condition of women…

Fad signifies ‘arrive’ and Jal means ‘work,’ ‘work’ because when you arrive at this farming village called Fad’jal, you must work. When you work, you’re happy, and if you don’t work, people will mock you.

I interpret Safi Faye’s “feminisant”—from the French word “femme”, feminist, female”—as doing womanist work. Womanist, itself an expression coined by afro-descendant women in order to reconceptualize western feminism as defined by white women, which often does not reflect the realities of women of color.

Safi Faye’s words invoke the often vexed relationship that Afro-descendant women and women of the
South have with Western feminism, fraught with a contentious past, spurned by those who reject its historical practices of exclusion, ethnocentrism and elitism by white women.

Hence by rejecting the feminist label but affirming “womanistic” as the practice of defending the cause of women, Safi Faye is exercising her agency by naming her own experience rather than accepting one based on another reality.

As a further matter, describing the actions of doing “womanist work” renegotiates the terms of this feminism—outlining the tenets of a conceptual framework toward an intersectional, interdisciplinary, and transnational methodology. In so doing, I use the second citation by Safi Faye to place emphasis on the praxis-based approach to her cinematic practice, as she states:

I investigate, inquire, and then I write, and I try to remain faithful to the rural world that I come from, as well as to Africa and the villagers. I admire people who live off the land. In Serer country, the coastal people to which I belong . . . are renowned for the energy they put into their work. The people live within a matriarchal society in which women have more importance than men. Men and women are free thanks to the fruits of their labor. The rural world, the theme that I chose and which corresponds to my cinematic vision, is timeless. It concerns all rural farmers, whether they are Japanese, Senegalese or Singaporean, since we’ve all been rural farmers at one time; the entire world comes from the countryside. I glorify the hard work rural farmers do to achieve food self-sufficiency.

Therefore, Safi Faye’s womanistic act of defending the cause of women is concomitant with her desire to contribute to the knowledge production of Africa and the safeguarding of its culture: "I do what I can for my Africa, to tell how beautiful Africa is."

*Drawn from : "Exploring African Women’s Cinematic Practice as Womanist Work"
 
Also see: 
Safi Faye : La Grande Référence - 1943-2023 - A Tribute, "I dared to make a film!"

05 December 2024

From Kaddu Beykat to Pumzi: Commemorating World Soil Day, 5 December


The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) Commemorates World Soil Day on 5 December:

Soils have been neglected for too long. We fail to connect soil with our food, water, climate, biodiversity and life. We must invert this tendency and take up some preserving and restoring actions. The World Soil Day campaign aims to connect people with soils and raise awareness on their critical importance in our lives.

The environment has long been a theme that African women in cinema have addressed in their work, from Kaddu Beykat (1975) by Senegalese Safi Faye to Pumzi (2009) by Wanuri Kahiu of Kenya. 

In Safi Faye's Kaddu Beykat the story unfolds through the backdrop of an ongoing drought in the village, causing economic upheaval as groundnuts are its sole crop. In the film, Safi Faye depicts the hardships and problems of a Senegalese peasantry bent under the yoke of an agricultural system dominated by groundnut cultivation. A culture that is imposed on them to the detriment of the food crops that allowed them to live. She challenges the authorities, but also proposes a reflection on the future through reforestation and the protection of nature.

In the 1990s, Burkinabé Franceline Oubda directed her camera on themes around the environment in her documentary film, Femmes de Yatanga, which explores the initiatives of the Association Six 'S' ("L'Association Six 'S'"), based in Burkina Faso. The Association Six 'S' in French illustrates the first letter of the words, all beginning with 's', which describes the objective of the group--savoir se servir de la saison seche en savane au Sahel (to know how to make use of the dry season in the savanna of the Sahel). Her film Femmes de Yatanga portrays the women's efforts to survive the desertification that is threatening the region by using alternative methods of rearing sheep.

Wanuri Kahiu was inspired by the late Nobel Prize laureate and compatriot Wangari Maathai, whose Greenbelt Movement challenged Africans to replenish the earth by planting trees, combatting deforestation and soil erosion.

Talking about what motivated her to make the film Pumzi, Wanuri Kahiu had this to say: “Wangari Maathai has been talking about this issue for years and we never heed her advice so I am not here to tell people to conserve the environment alone, I am showing them what will happen if we don’t. I show a land where people recycle their own water to survive.” (nation.co.ke)

And thus the African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates the importance of soil, as it highlights the work of African women in cinema who endeavor to raise the public's awareness of soil and its importance to humanity and the environment. 

09 June 2024

Dr. Estrella Sendra discusses the Legacy of Safi Faye with The African Cinema Podcast

 

Dr. Estrella Sendra discusses the Legacy of Safi Faye with The African Cinema Podcast

Drawing directly from the article “”I dared to make a film: A tribute to the life and work of Safi Faye” Black Camera Fall 2023*, Dr. Estrella Sendra discusses the Legacy of Safi Faye with The African Cinema Podcast

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3KbfNderfGDcoERMVoP4Gt

*See link to Black Camera article by Beti Ellerson
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2023/12/safi-faye-i-dared-to-make-a-film-tribute-to-her-life-and-work.html

 Image: Beti Ellerson

22 February 2024

In memory of Safi Faye, 22 November 1943 - 22 February 2023, already a year has passed | À la memoire de Safi Faye, 22 novembre - 22 février 2023, un an déjà



In memory of Safi Faye, 22 November 1943 - 22 February 2023, already a year has passed

À la memoire de Safi Faye, 22 novembre 1943 - 22 février 2023, un an déjà


Images: Beti Ellerson


Safi Faye has been regularly featured on the African Women in Cinema Blog since its inception 15 years ago. In addition to the recent in depth tribute to her life and work, articles include translated interviews, discussions of her film work, events that give homage to her and her work.


30 December 2023

“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) - African Women in Cinema Dossier


08 September 2023

Safi Faye à l’affiche - Safi Faye in the Spotlight - 45è édition - Le Festival des 3 Continents - Nantes et en Loire-Atlantique 2023


16 June 2023

Focus Safi Faye & Khady Sylla - Gëstu Naataal i Jigeen - Festival Africain de film | recherche féministes | African Feminist Film Festival - 16-18 06 2023 - Gorée, Senegal


04 May 2023

Safi Faye Memorial Talk - 'Women of African Cinema’ - Film at Lincoln Center - May 6 2023


12 April 2023

"I Dared To Make A Film": A Tribute To The Life And Work Of Safi Faye - Indiana University Cinema


26 March 2023

Tributes to - Hommages à Safi Faye (1943 - 2023)


23 March 2023

HOMMAGE À SAFI FAYE, cinéaste pionnière sénégalaise - Festival International de Films de Femmes and Inathèque - 27 mars 2023


20 March 2023

FOCUS: Thérèse Sita Bella, Safi Faye et l'évolution de la pratique cinématographique des femmes africaines | the evolution of African women’s cinematic practice - 20 - 24 / 3 / 2023 - Belgique | Belgium


01 March 2023

Remembering Safi Faye (1943-2023)


24 February 2023

Safi Faye : La Grande Référence - 1943-2023 - A Tribute, "I dared to make a film!"


14 January 2023

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


01 September 2022

Safi Faye's La Passante 50 years on: "I dared to make a film"


06 March 2022

Films Femmes Afrique Festival 2022: Tribute to Safi Faye: A "Peasant Letter" still relevant today | Hommage à Safi Faye : Une «Lettre paysanne» encore actuelle by/de Mame Woury Thioubou.


12 August 2021

Safi Faye's Mossane at 25


23 March 2021

Luxor African Film Festival 2021 Celebrates 10 years of Imagination - Memories of Safi Faye (2016) and Dora Bouchoucha (2019)


27 May 2019

Black Camera: Safi Faye's Mossane: A Song to Women, to Beauty, to Africa by Beti Ellerson (Spring 2019)


21 May 2018

Safi Faye : Selbe, one among many | Selbe et tant d'autres – restored/restauré en/in Wolof – African Film Festival New York 2018


17 May 2018

Safi Faye : “Fad,jal” (Cannes Classics 2018)


24 December 2017

Safi Faye to young filmmakers: “Dare! You are free to do whatever you want” by Mame Woury Thioubou. Le quotidien.sn


25 November 2015

Prix Safi Faye pour la meilleure réalisatrice - Safi Faye Award for the best woman filmmaker - JCC - Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage


26 May 2010

Safi Faye: Role Model | La Grande Référence (32nd Festival International de Films de Femmes 2010) - La Leçon de Cinéma de Safi Faye


 

30 December 2023

“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) - African Women in Cinema Dossier

“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)
African Women in Cinema Dossier

Images: Beti Ellerson 


My journey into African Women Cinema Studies began with my interviews of the women at Fespaco in 1997, Safi Faye was among them. I remember very vividly those moments I shared with Safi, she was laid-back, passionate, engaging, and funny. The film that resulted from those interviews, Sisters of the Screen, is an important part of that journey, and her words introduce it. She, without a doubt led the way for me. I have learned a great deal from her, her work, her cinematic practice and innovative ethnological methodology, the importance of listening, the primacy of voice, all of which I have incorporated in my own work. Indeed, as in her own filmmaking: the camera, the cameraman and I, were eyewitness to her story. Here twenty-seven years later, it is an honor to share this tribute.


Safi Faye was born in Dakar, Senegal, on November 22, 1943, and throughout her life embraced her Serer roots of the rural world. Raised in a large family—the second of five sisters and a brother, her parents emphasized the importance of formal education and encouraged their children to succeed academically. She received her teaching certificate from the Normal School of Rufisque and spent her tenure as a teacher in Dakar. As an official guide at the First World Festival of Black Arts held in Senegal in 1966, she was introduced to African cultures and learned about the significance of their contributions on a global scale. This was a turning point in her personal and professional development. During the event she would meet intellectuals from around the world, including anthropologist and cineaste Jean Rouch who would invite her to participate in his film. During the shooting, she would travel to Europe and other parts of Africa.

       

She often talked about receiving a French colonial education, which gave her more knowledge about France than about Africa, and the paradox of having to go to Europe to learn about her continent. In 1970 she went to Paris to study ethnology at the Sorbonne, from a desire to work on her own culture and traditions—she studied as well at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. She completed her doctorate in 1979. As part of the curriculum at the Sorbonne she had recourse to the camera as an instrument of research. Having understood the significance of film as a visual record, she enrolled in the Louis Lumière Film School; there she “dared” to make a film, La Passante, in 1972. Other films followed, fourteen in total, notably the internationally acclaimed Kaddu Beykat (1975), Fad’jal (1979) and Mossane (1996). Using cinema as a tool for teaching and learning, Safi aimed to educate future generations of Africans about their origins, their history. The passion that she had for her continent and its people has been evident throughout her career as educator, ethnologist, filmmaker. She talked fondly of her beloved daughter, Zeïba, who was born in 1976; she was also a grandmother: “I am spending more and more time with them, and I enjoy it.”

 

On Feburary 22, 2023 she joined the ancestors, where she lays to rest in her paternal native village of Fadial. But rather than a library burning down—a famous citation of Amadou Hampâté Bâ that she quotes in her legendary film Fad’jal—her story will remain alive, passed on to the next generation, as we continue in the oral tradition, to say her name—and show her work.

Safi, may the earth rest lightly upon you.

 

Indeed, in the words of her compatriot Birago Diop, Safi Faye lives—through the sounds and whispers of the Serer country, through her daughter, her grandchildren, through our memories, through her films—the last of which invokes the Pangool ancestors.

May they guard and protect her.

 

This essay is a tribute to her life and work.


Table of contents: 


Safi Faye, Ethnologist, Cineaste, Peasant, Mother

The Oeuvres of Safi Faye
La Passante
Revanche
Kaddu Beykat | Peasant Letter
Fad'jal 
Goob na ñu 
Man sa yay 
Les ames au soleil | Souls Under the Sun
Selbé et tant d'autres | Selbé, One Among Many
Trois ans cinq mois
Ambassades nourricières / Culinary Embassies
Racines noires / Black Roots
Elsie Haas, femme peintre et cinéaste d'Haiti
Tesito
Mossane

Themes across Time 
Safi Faye through a Womanistic Lens
Work as Leitmotif
Visualizing Oral Tradition: Giving Agency to the Voice of the Peasantry—The Duty of Memory
The Peasantry and the Production of Knowledge
Safi Faye’s Imaginary and the Western Gaze
Safi Faye Reclaiming Discourse on the Anthropology of Africa: The Dichotomies of Fact and the Fictional Imaginaire

Cinema lessons from Safi Faye
Words on Cinematic Practice
For Whom Do I Make Films
Filming in Africa
The Politics of African Cinema

The Visualization of the Rural World as Cinematic Vision
Words on Kaddu Beykat
Words on Fad’jal
Words on Mossane

The Pleasure and Pain of a Cineaste

The Makings of a Final Oeuvre

Filmography

Some Moments in the Life and Work of Safi Faye 

Tributes to Safi Faye from around the World 

08 September 2023

Safi Faye à l’affiche - Safi Faye in the Spotlight - 45è édition - Le Festival des 3 Continents - Nantes et en Loire-Atlantique 2023

La réalisatrice Safi Faye à l’Affiche
Director Safi Faye in the Spotlight
45è Édition
Le Festival des 3 Continents - Nantes et en Loire-Atlantique
2023

https://www.3continents.com/fr/actu/affiche-2023-safi-faye/


Hommage à Safi Faye (Sénégal)


Cinéaste pionnière et première femme d’Afrique subsaharienne à réaliser un long métrage (Lettre paysanne, 1975 - Prix Georges Sadoul et Prix de la critique au Festival de Berlin), Safi Faye s’est éteinte en février dernier, au moment même où le Festival des 3 Continents s’apprêtait à l’inviter à présenter l’intégralité de son travail à Nantes. Formée à l’ethnologie à l’EHESS puis à l’école Louis Lumière, elle quitte son poste d’enseignante pour se consacrer au septième art après avoir rencontré Jean Rouch qui lui confie un rôle dans Petit à Petit. Autrice d’une œuvre à la forte empreinte documentaire, Safi Faye saisit les outils du cinéma non seulement comme ceux d’une possible émancipation féminine, sociale et coloniale mais aussi pour rendre à une tradition orale, gestuelle et terrienne sa force et son histoire. Cinéaste fidèle à son Sérère natal, Safi Faye est l’incarnation pleine et entière d’une africanité face aux défis de son temps.


Pioneering cineaste and the first woman of SubSahara Africa to make a feature film (Peasant Letter, 1975 - Prix Georges Sadoul et Prix de la critique au Festival de Berlin), Safi Faye passed away last February at the same moment that the Festival des 3 Continents was preparing to invite her to present her body of work in Nantes. Trained in ethnology at the EHESS and the Louis Lumière film school, she left her position as teacher to focus on the Seventh Art after meeting Jean Rouch who presented her with a role in Petit à Petit. Author of a work with a strong documentary footprint, Safi Faye seized the tools of cinema not only as a possible means of social, colonial and women’s emancipation, but also to restore the vitality and history of an oral, gestural and community-based tradition. A cineaste loyal to her native Serer roots, Safi Faye is the full and true embodiment of Africanness, facing the challenges of her time.


Avec Safi Faye | With Safi Faye


France - Documentaire - Couleur - 19′


In partnership with INA the extracts of interviews of Safi Faye introduces different sections of the homage to the cineaste. The screening of Ambassades nourricières the 3rd of December is preceded by the entirety of the archives.


En partenariat avec l’INA (Institut national de l’audiovisuel), des extraits d’interviews de Safi Faye introduisent différentes séances de l’hommage à la cinéaste. La projection d’Ambassades nourricières le 3 décembre est précédée par l’ensemble de ces archives.



***

These interviews give us the opportunity to hear to Safi Faye, a rare moment, at the time of the presentation of Mossane at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996, and the theatrical release in 1998, which coincides with the retrospective at the International Festival of Film de Femmes de Créteil dedicated to her. Safi Faye is garnering rather late media attention, as Mossane is her last film. This perhaps explains the sense of wariness that one may perceive in her voice, and in her expression. But what we hear above all is a mixture of humility and audacity, affirmation and restraint, the same mixture which shapes the tone of her films. AR


Ces entretiens nous donnent à entendre la parole, rare, de Safi Faye, au moment de la présentation de Mossane au Festival de Cannes en 1996, puis de la sortie en salles du film en 1998, qui coïncide avec la rétrospective que le Festival International du Film de Femmes de Créteil consacre à la cinéaste. Safi Faye accède à une médiatisation bien tardive, puisque Mossane est son dernier film. Cela explique peut-être la pointe de méfiance que l’on perçoit dans sa voix, et les regards en coin qu’elle distribue. Mais ce qu’on y entend surtout, c’est un mélange d’humilité et d’audace, d’affirmation et de retenue, ce même mélange qui façonne le ton de ses films. AR



***


Le Festival des 3 Continents a le plaisir de vous révéler l’affiche de sa 45ème édition qui se tiendra à Nantes du 24 novembre au 3 décembre 2023 à Nantes et en Loire-Atlantique.


L’affiche réalisée par le studio graphique Lesbeauxjours représente un portrait de la réalisatrice sénégalaise Safi Faye à laquelle le festival rend hommage à travers une rétrospective intégrale de son œuvre.


“Cinéaste pionnière et première femme d’Afrique subsaharienne à avoir réalisé un long-métrage (Lettre paysanne, 1975 – Prix Georges Sadoul et Prix de la Critique à Berlin), Safi Faye est disparue en février dernier à l’heure où nous nous apprêtions à l’inviter ce mois de novembre à présenter l’intégralité de son travail au Festival des 3 Continents, déclare Jérôme Baron, directeur artistique du festival. Un hommage se substitue désormais à cette invitation à laquelle d’un geste de la main, le sourire montant dans les yeux, la cinéaste semble répondre depuis une salle de montage où elle travaillait.”


De ses débuts comme actrice chez Jean Rouch à la singularité d’une œuvre à la forte empreinte documentaire, Safi Faye aura saisi les outils du cinéma non seulement comme ceux d’une possible émancipation féminine, sociale et coloniale mais aussi pour rendre à une tradition orale, gestuelle et terrienne sa force et son histoire. Africaine, paysanne fidèle à son Sérère natal, cinéaste engagée, femme libre, Safi Faye aura moins été une personnalité aux multiples facettes que l’incarnation pleine et entière d’une africanité face au défi de son temps.

Les grands axes de la programmation du Festival des 3 Continents seront rendus publics prochainement et la Sélection officielle révélée le 9 novembre 2023, lors d’une conférence de presse.


***


45th Edition · Director Safi Faye in the Spotlight


The Festival des 3 Continents is delighted to unveil the poster for its 45th edition, which will be held in Nantes, France, from November 24th to December 3rd 2023.


The poster, designed by Lesbeauxjours graphic agency, features a portrait of the Senegalese director Safi FAYE, to whom the festival is paying tribute. 


"She was a pioneer in filmmaking and the first woman from sub-Saharan Africa to make a feature film (Lettre paysanne, 1975 - Georges Sadoul Prize and Berlin Critics' Prize). Safi Faye passed away last February just as we were about to invite her to present all her work at the Festival des 3 Continents, says Jérôme BARON, the festival's artistic director. A tribute now replaces this invitation, to which the filmmaker seems to respond with a wave of her hand, a smile rising in her eyes, from an editing room where she used to work" 


From her beginnings working as an actress with Jean ROUCH to the singularity of a body of work with a strong documentary imprint, Safi Faye has seized the tools of cinema not only as those of a possible feminine, social and colonial emancipation, but also to give back to an oral, gestural and earthy tradition its strength and its history. An African woman, a peasant loyal to her native Sérère, a committed filmmaker and a free woman, Safi Faye was not so only a multi-faceted personality but also the full and complete embodiment of an African identity facing up to the challenges of her time.


Films


La Passante (1972) sous reserve - subject to confirmation

Lettre Paysanne ( Kaddu Beykat) 1975

Fad'jal (Grand-Père, Raconte Nous) 1979

Moi, Ta Mère (Man Say Yay) 1980

Les âmes au soleil (Souls under the Sun) 1982

Ambassades Nourricières (1984)

Mossane (1996)

Avec Safi Faye (1979, 1998)

Leçon de cinémas avec Safi Faye (2008)

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