Kaddu Beykat (Serer: "Voice of the Peasant";[2] also known as Lettre paysanne or Letter from My Village) is a 1975 Senegalese film directed by Safi Faye. It was the first feature film made by a Black African woman to be commercially distributed and brought international recognition for its director.[3][4] Centred on a romance, it chronicles the daily lives of people in a rural Senegalese village.
| Kaddu Beykat | |
|---|---|
 Title card | |
| Directed by | Safi Faye |
| Written by | Safi Faye[1] |
| Starring |
|
| Narrated by | Safi Faye |
| Cinematography | Patrick Fabry |
| Edited by | André Davanture[1] |
Production company | Safi |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 90 minutes |
| Country | Senegal |
| Languages | |
Plot
editNgor is a young man living in a Senegalese village who wishes to marry Coumba. Ongoing drought in the village has affected its crop of groundnuts and as a result, Ngor cannot afford the bride price for Columba. He goes to Senegal's capital city, Dakar, to try to earn more money and is exploited there. He returns to the villagers and shares his experiences of the city with the other men. The story, which shows the daily lives of the villagers, is told in the form of a letter to a friend from a villager, voiced by Faye.[5]
Cast
edit- Assane Faye as Ngor
- Maguette Gueye as Coumba
Background
edit
Kaddu Beykat is set in Faye's family village, Fad'jal (Fadial) in Thiès Region,[6] southern Senegal.[7][8] Financing for the film came from the French Ministry of Cooperation and it was made with a crew of three people.[9] It is a mixture of documentary and fiction.[8] For some parts of the film, Faye gathered villagers together, gave them a topic of conversation and proceeded to film them.[8] She took advice from the villagers on what to film.[9] As with her other work, Faye was careful to show African culture from the inside, rather than as an objective observer.[9] The film is a critique of colonial farming practices and government policies which have encouraged single-crop farming of cash crops for export, in some cases leading villages further into poverty.[4][5] The film is dedicated to Faye's grandfather who features in the film, and who died 11 days after filming ended.[10]
Distribution and reception
editKaddu Beykat played at the 1976 Berlin International Film Festival where it won the FIPRESCI Prize[11] and the OCIC Award. It also won the Georges Sadoul Prize and an award at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou.[11][12] It was released in France on October 20, 1976. It was initially banned in Senegal.[13]
References
editNotes
edit- ^ a b "Production Credits". Allmovie. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
- ^ Thackway, Melissa (September 24, 2003). Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-Saharan Francophone African Film. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780852555767 – via Google Books.
- ^ Ukadike, p.30
- ^ a b Spaas, p.185
- ^ a b Russell, p. 59
- ^ Pfaff, Françoise (September 24, 1988). Twenty-five Black African Filmmakers: A Critical Study, with Filmography and Bio-bibliography. Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313246951 – via Google Books.
- ^ Thackway, p.151
- ^ a b c Schmidt, p.287
- ^ a b c Foster, p.130
- ^ Armes, p.79
- ^ a b Petrolle, p.177
- ^ "Safi Faye". jiffynotes.com. 1998. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
- ^ "Africa Beyond". BBC. 2007. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
Sources
edit- Armes, Roy (2006). African filmmaking: north and south of the Sahara. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34853-1.
- Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey (1995). Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 130–132. ISBN 978-0-313-28972-9.
- Petrolle, Jean; Virginia Wright Wexman (2005). Women and Experimental Filmmaking. University of Illinois Press. pp. 177–192. ISBN 978-0-252-03006-2.
- Russell, Sharon A. (1998). Guide to African Cinema. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 58–59. ISBN 978-0-313-29621-5.
- Harrow, Kenneth W. (1999). African Cinema: Postcolonial and Feminist Readings. Africa World Press. ISBN 978-0-86543-697-8.
- Spaas, Lieve (2001). The Francophone Film: A Struggle for Identity. Manchester University Press. pp. 185–188. ISBN 978-0-7190-5861-5.
- Thackway, Melissa (2003). Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-Saharan Francophone. James Currey Publishers. pp. 151–155. ISBN 978-0-85255-576-7.
- Ukadike, Nwachukwu Frank; Teshome H. Gabriel (2002). Questioning African Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 29–40. ISBN 978-0-8166-4004-1.