Senegalese film director and ethnologist Safi Faye, is credited as being the first woman in Sub-Saharan Africa to direct a commercially distributed feature film. A pioneer woman director in the male-dominated realm of African cinema, Safi Fare’s film career spans more than 25 years.
Trained as an educator, Faye was introduced to filmmaking by Jean Rouch, the ethnographic filmmaker credited with the term cinema verité. Rouch and Faye met while Faye was working as an official hostess for the 1966 Dakar Festival of Negro Arts.
She took interest in Rouch’s work as a filmmaker and acted in his film Petit à Petit (1969), with Rouch's encouragement Faye studied ethnology at the university of Paris, first earning a diploma in 1977 and then a doctorate in 1979.
Ethnographic Filmmaking
Faye made her first films in France. Revanche (Revenge; 1973), made collectively with other students in Paris, her second film, La Passant (The Passerby; 1972-1975), which she also acted in.
Faye described the female protagonist in her film La Passante as a foreigner who arouses a certain curiosity among the people of the country in which she is presently residing. She lives in a country where she is neither integrated nor assimilated. She is in Europe but her thoughts are in Africa. Faye saw her own experiences in the life of her character and declared I am just like her, I define myself as a passerby.
However it was her filmKaddu Beykat(Peasant Letter; 1975), the first ethnographic film Faye made in Senegal that brought her international attention through film awards – and remains her most widely reviewed and analyzed film.
Kaddu Beykat,a feature-length film made in black and white, is about Fad Jal, her natal village in Senegal. It follows the slow pace of Serer life, providing an overview of such topics as agriculture, family structure, domestic life, children's games, social gatherings, the migration of young people, and comparisons between the abundance of the past and the scarcity of the present.
Her film was a far cry from the often culturally distant and biased gaze of alien Western observers. She gave a voice to a group of illiterate Senegalese farmers.
Faye’s engagement in cinema seemingly triggered her subsequent use of the camera as an investigative and pedagogical tool in ethnographic filmmaking, which, to this date, represents the bulk of her cinematic output.
Another of her best-known film is the documentary Selbé One among Others produced in 1982. This film was part of a unique and innovative program funded by UNICEF. Several filmmakers were chosen to direct films documenting the everyday experiences of women in different countries.
Faye focused on her native Senegal, and was about Selbé Diout, a 39-year-old woman struggling in a village for the survival of herself and her children.
Faye’s international reputation is celebrated not only for her vision, but also for her style, for she brought to African ethnographic film the perspective not of the “outsider” observing the exotic, but that of a member of the culture.
Safi Faye is acknowledged as one of the most accomplished women filmmakers in sub-Saharan Africa. However, very few Africans have seen her films because she has lived and worked in Europe.
Awards:
Prize, Festival International du Film de l'Ensemble Francophone (FIFEF), Geneva, 1975; Georges Sadoul Prize, France, 1975; Special Award, 5th Panafrican Film Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), Burkina Faso, 1976; FIPRESCI International Film Critics Award, Berlin Film Festival, 1976; Award at the Carthage Film Festival, Tunisia, 1980; Special Prize at the Leipzig Film Festival, Germany, 1982; special tribute at the 20th Festival de Femmes de Créteil, France, 1998.
La Leçon de Cinéma de Safi Faye by filmsfemmes
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Filmography:
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Safi Faye collection:
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La Passante (1972)
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Revanche (1973)
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Kaddu Beykat (1975)
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Fad’jal; Goob na nu (La Récolte est finie (1979).
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Man Sa Yay (1980)
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Les Âmes au soleil (1981)
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Selbé et tant director’autres (1982)
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3 ans 5 mois (1983).
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Ambassades Nourricières (1984)
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Racines noires (1985)
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Tesito (1989)
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Tournage Mossane (1990)
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Mossane (1996)
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