“Sooner or later, I’ll return to where my other self is.” The everyday experiences of a Senegalese student in West Berlin are marked by a sense of uneasiness in Europe and his family’s expectations in the form of a constant stream of letters.

The story of a Serer village in the groundnut basin of Senegal. Using the words of their ancestors passed on by oral folklore, the villagers trace the history of their village and their difficulties in working their land and living off their produce. Fad'jal is an extraordinary boundary defying film that interweaves ethnographic footage, intimate observation of everyday village life and fictionalised historical scenes. With it, Faye carefully encourages the viewers to reflect both on African history and storytelling, and on the intersection of fiction and documentary.

1996 film by Safi Faye

Ngor 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 Coumba. 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.