KADDU BEYKAT wins the Locarno Heritage Restoration Contest

It was selected from more than 30 entries from around the world and will now be restored by Cinegrell. In 2026, the Locarno Film Festival will present the new digital restoration for the first time.

The jury, consisting of Bernardo Rondeau, Leo van Hee, and Nicole Allemann, read their statement at the Locarno Pro awards ceremony on August 10: “On the 50th anniversary of its release, we want to honor KADDU BEYKAT, the groundbreaking debut by pioneering Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye. Thanks to this restoration, this powerful and poetic first feature will now be rediscovered by new generations. With this choice, we celebrate not only the film’s enduring relevance but also the legacy of a woman who paved the way for African cinema.”

Arsenal would like to express its sincere gratitude to Locarno Heritage Partner and Cinegrell for this award.

Since 2015, Arsenal has represented Safi Faye's entire oeuvre at her request. After the screenings of KADDU BEYKAT and Fad'jal (Come and Work, Senegal 1979) at the Berlinale Forum (1976 and 1979, respectively), Faye returned to Berlin at the invitation of the Freie Universität Berlin, where she subsequently spent several months as a scholarship holder of the DAAD Artists-in-Residence Program. During this time, she was a frequent guest at the Arsenal Cinema, with which she remained on friendly terms.

The digital restoration of KADDU BEYKAT marks the first step of a new visibility of her oeuvre by Arsenal. A retrospective is planned for the end of 2026, which will provide an overview of her work. This will be followed by screenings and events in several countries and continents.

KADDU BEYKAT Safi Faye Letter from My Village Senegal 1975

The ongoing drought in a Senegalese village is causing yields to decline for millet and peanut farmers. The catastrophic damage, caused by the agricultural monoculture of the colonial era, is becoming apparent. As a result, farm worker Ngor cannot afford the dowry for his beloved Coumba. He tries his luck in Dakar with odd jobs.

Safi Faye frames the plot with her commentary, creating an audiovisual letter to the audience, inviting them to be her guests in her home village for the duration of the film. The docu-fiction, shot with a small team in three weeks, is the successful result of her participatory work with the villagers, including her grandfather, who died shortly after filming ended.

Safi Faye (born in 1943 in Fad'jal near Dakar, Senegal) was a filmmaker and held a doctorate in ethnology/anthropology. Faye was not only the first woman from sub-Saharan Africa to direct a short film (La Passante, 1972), but also, shortly thereafter, a commercial feature film, KADDU BEYKAT (1975), which premiered in Cannes in 1975 and was shown at the Berlinale Forum in 1976. Faye's cinematic work, which spans almost fifty years, has not yet been sufficiently researched in terms of its thematic relevance, even though her documentaries, which focus on the community and the experiences of women and children in rural areas, have been well regarded. Her films include Fad'jal(1979),Selbé et tant d'autres(1982), Tesito (1989), and Mossane (1996). In 1979, Faye came to Freie Universität Berlin for a video workshop and subsequently remained in the city on a DAAD scholarship. During this time, she made her film Man Sa Yay (1980). Safi Faye died on February 22, 2023, in Paris.