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Safi Faye is a Actor, Director, Writer and Producer Senegalaise born on 22 november 1943 at Dakar (Senegal)

Safi Faye

Safi Faye
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Nationality Senegal
Birth 22 november 1943 at Dakar (Senegal)
Death 22 february 2023 (at 79 years)

Safi Faye (born November 22, 1943) is a Senegalese film director and ethnologist. She was the first Sub-Saharan African woman to direct a commercially distributed feature film. She has directed several documentary and fiction films focusing on rural life in Senegal.

Biography

Early life and education
Safi Faye was born in 1943 in Dakar, Senegal to a Serer family. Her parents were from Fad'jal, a village south of Dakar. She attended the Normal School in Rufisque and receiving her teaching certificate in 1962 or 1963, began teaching in Dakar.

In 1966 she went to the Dakar Festival of Negro Arts and met French ethnologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch. He encouraged her to use film making as an ethnographic tool. She had an acting role in his 1971 film Petit à petit. Faye has said that she dislikes Rouch's film but that working with him enabled her to learn about filmmaking and cinéma-vérité. In the 1970s she studied ethnology at the École pratique des hautes études and then at the Lumière Film School. She supported herself by working as a model, an actor and in film sound effects. In 1979, she received a PhD in ethnology from the University of Paris. From 1979 to 1980, Faye studied video production in Berlin and was a guest lecturer at the Free University of Berlin. She received a further degree in ethnology from the Sorbonne in 1988.


Film career
Faye's first film, which she also acted in, was a 1972 short called La Passante (The Passerby), drawn from her experiences as a foreign woman in Paris. It follows a woman (Faye) walking down a street and noticing the reactions of men nearby. Faye's first feature film was Kaddu Beykat which means The Voice of the Peasant in Wolof and was known internationally as Letter from My Village or News from My Village. She obtained financial backing for Kaddu Beykat from the French Ministry of Cooperation. Released in 1975, it was the first feature film to be made by a Sub-Saharan African woman to be commercially distributed and gained international recognition for Faye. On its release it was banned in Senegal. In 1976 it won the FIPRESCI Prize from the International Federation of Film Critics (tied with Chhatrabhang) and the OCIC Award.

Faye's 1983 documentary film Selbé: One Among Many follows a 39-year-old woman called Sélbe who works to support her eight children since her husband has left their village to look for work. Selbé regularly converses with Faye, who remains off-screen, and describes her relationship with her husband and daily life in the village.

Faye's films are better known in Europe than in her native Africa as a result of them rarely being shown in Africa.

Usually with

Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Safi Faye (3 films)

Display filmography as list

Actress

Letter from My Village
Directed by Safi Faye
Origin Senegal
Genres Drama, Documentary
Actors Safi Faye
Roles Villager (voice)
Rating70% 3.5363253.5363253.5363253.5363253.536325
Ngor is a young man living in a Senegalese village who wishes to marry Columba. 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.
Little by Little, 1h36
Directed by Jean Rouch
Origin France
Genres Drama, Comedy
Actors Damouré Zika, Safi Faye, Moustapha Alassane
Roles Safi, cover-girl sénégalaise,
Rating72% 3.6144553.6144553.6144553.6144553.614455
Damouré, qui dirige à Ayorou (Niger) avec Lam et Illo la société d'import-export Petit à petit décide de construire un « grand Building » dans son village. Il part à Paris pour voir « comment on peut vivre dans des maisons à étages ». Dans la capitale, il découvre les curieuses façons de vivre et de penser des Parisiens qu'il décrit dans des « Lettres persanes » envoyées régulièrement à ces compagnons, jusqu'à ce que ceux-ci, le croyant devenu fou, envoient Lam le rejoindre pour se rendre compte sur place...

Director

Mossane
Mossane (1996)
, 1h45
Directed by Safi Faye
Origin Senegal
Genres Drama
Rating70% 3.5467453.5467453.5467453.5467453.546745
Mossane (Magou Seck) is a beautiful 14-year-old girl from a rural Serer village, beloved by many including her own brother and Fara, a poor university student. Although she has long been promised in marriage to the wealthy Diogaye, Mossane defies her parents' wishes and falls in love with Fara. On her wedding day, she refuses to marry Diogaye and tragedy ensues.
Letter from My Village
Directed by Safi Faye
Origin Senegal
Genres Drama, Documentary
Actors Safi Faye
Rating70% 3.5363253.5363253.5363253.5363253.536325
Ngor is a young man living in a Senegalese village who wishes to marry Columba. 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.

Scriptwriter

Mossane
Mossane (1996)
, 1h45
Directed by Safi Faye
Origin Senegal
Genres Drama
Roles Writer
Rating70% 3.5467453.5467453.5467453.5467453.546745
Mossane (Magou Seck) is a beautiful 14-year-old girl from a rural Serer village, beloved by many including her own brother and Fara, a poor university student. Although she has long been promised in marriage to the wealthy Diogaye, Mossane defies her parents' wishes and falls in love with Fara. On her wedding day, she refuses to marry Diogaye and tragedy ensues.
Letter from My Village
Directed by Safi Faye
Origin Senegal
Genres Drama, Documentary
Actors Safi Faye
Roles Writer
Rating70% 3.5363253.5363253.5363253.5363253.536325
Ngor is a young man living in a Senegalese village who wishes to marry Columba. 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.

Production

Letter from My Village
Directed by Safi Faye
Origin Senegal
Genres Drama, Documentary
Actors Safi Faye
Roles Producer
Rating70% 3.5363253.5363253.5363253.5363253.536325
Ngor is a young man living in a Senegalese village who wishes to marry Columba. 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.