''Kaddu Beykat'' ( Serer: "Voice of the Peasant"; also known as ''Lettre paysanne'' or ''Letter from My Village'') is a

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 ...

ese film directed by Safi Faye. It was the first feature film made by a

Black African Black is a Racialization, racialized classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have ...

woman to be commercially distributed and brought international recognition for its director.Ukadike, p.30Spaas, p.185 Centred on a romance, it chronicles the daily lives of people in a rural Senegalese village.

Plot

Ngor is a young man living in a Senegalese village who wishes to marry Coumba. Ongoing

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

in the village has affected its crop of groundnuts and as a result, Ngor cannot afford the

bride price Bride price, bride-dowry ( Mahr in Islam), bride-wealth, or bride token, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be married to or is just about to marry. Bride dow ...

for Columba. He goes to Senegal's capital city,

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from :wo:daqaar, daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the 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.Russell, p. 59

Cast

* Assane Faye as Ngor * Maguette Gueye as Coumba

Background

''Kaddu Beykat'' is set in Faye's family village, Fad'jal (Fadial) in Thiès Region, southern Senegal.Schmidt, p.287 Financing for the film came from the French Ministry of Cooperation and it was made with a crew of three people.Foster, p.130 It is a mixture of documentary and fiction. For some parts of the film, Faye gathered villagers together, gave them a topic of conversation and proceeded to film them. She took advice from the villagers on what to film. As with her other work, Faye was careful to show African culture from the inside, rather than as an objective observer. The film is a critique of

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...

farming practices and government policies which have encouraged single-crop farming of cash crops for export, in some cases leading villages further into poverty. The film is dedicated to Faye's grandfather who features in the film, and who died 11 days after filming ended.

Distribution and reception

''Kaddu Beykat'' played at the 1976

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the fest ...

where it won the FIPRESCI PrizePetrolle, p.177 and the

OCIC SIGNIS (official name: World Catholic Association for Communication) is a Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement for professionals in the communication media, including press, radio, television, cinema, video, media education, internet, and ne ...

Award. It also won the Georges Sadoul Prize and an award at the

Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Festival panafricain du cinéma et de la télévision de Ouagadougou or FESPACO) is a film festival in Burkina Faso, held biennially in Ouagadougou, where the organization is based. It ...

. It was released in France on October 20, 1976. It was initially banned in Senegal.

References

Notes

Sources

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External links

* * * {{authority control 1975 films Films directed by Safi Faye Senegalese black-and-white films 1970s French-language films Senegalese drama films Serer-language films Films by Serer directors Films about the Serer people Films about farmers