Safi Faye: Come and Work (Fad'Jal)

Come and Work (Fad‘]al), Safi Faye, 108’,  Senegal, ZDF 1.11.1979, OV with German subtitles

In Come and Work, Safi Faye portrays her home village in Senegal and thus creates a milestone in cinematic history. Documentary exploration and fabulous fictionalisation of the fragile history as well as the customs and everyday functioning of the farming village intertwine in such a way that nature and the culture marked by French influences can never exist independently of one another. Mythology and tradition meet renewal and modernity. In the conflict, the women who form the backbone of this rural society are usually left out. Only Faye films them and deliberately links them to the original matriarchal structure of the village. The sensually edited observations are held together by the narratives of the elders and the recurring presence of the filmmaker herself, which in all their ambivalence depict that every narrative is always a question of perspective. (Source: Patrick Holzapfel/Zeughauskino)

Safi Faye (1943–2023) was a Senegalese filmmaker and ethnologist, considered the first director from southern Africa to receive international acclaim for her films. Her debut film Kaddu Beykat – Letter from My Village was banned in Senegal and shown in the Berlinale Forum in 1976. Her other films have received many awards at festivals such as Cannes and Berlin. She returned time and again to her village, for example, for Come and Work (1979), which was made in cooperation with Das kleine Fernsehspiel and also screened in the Forum. Further co-productions with the editorial department include Mossane (1997) and Man Sa Yay - I, Your Mother (1980), the latter featured again in the 2023 Berlinale Forum Special Programme Fiktionsbescheinigung.