Jessica Beshir

Jessica Beshir (born 1988) is a Mexican documentary filmmaker. After directing several documentary shorts, she made her feature film debut with Faya Dayi which she won several awards for.

Biography Jessica Beshir was born in 1988 in Mexico City, the daughter of a Mexican mother and an Ethiopian father who was studying medicine in the country. Due to the government calling for the repatriation of the diaspora following the Ethiopian Civil War, her father brought the family to Harar, Ethiopia, where Beshir grew up, and worked as a surgeon in the country. the family fled Ethiopia and returned to Mexico when her father got a scholarship. In 2017, the film was awarded Best Documentary Short at the Edmonton International Film Festival and the Jury Award at the Anchorage International Film Festival. Her documentary short Hairat (2017) is about Abba Yussuf, the "Hyena Man of Harar" who came to international attention through the documentary series Planet Earth II. Hairat premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and it was shown at the 2018 Garden State Film Festival. She says "Me and the making of this film were one. It taught me about who I was. Nobody was interested in doing it [with me]. I realized I am the one who needs to do it, so I better learn how to use a camera, and I better learn how to produce. It was a call to develop myself, and in reconnecting with this land that I had left for a long time, I came to learn its history, and came to learn and listen to what the communities were talking about and to understand the struggles they were grappling with at the moment, especially politically." The complexity of the human experience is explored and underrepresented perspectives are frequently highlighted in Jessica Beshir's work. She uses a lyrical visual language in her films to elicit strong emotional reactions from her viewers. Focusing on topics like migration, family, and cultural legacy, Beshir's documentaries offer a complex look at the lives of people who are frequently underrepresented in the media. She won an American Society of Cinematographers Documentary Award, In 2024, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Film and Video. Jane Steiner Hoffman and Michael Hoffman donated funds for Jessica Beshir to be a 2024 Hoffman Visiting Artist for Documentary Media, a brief filmmaker residency at Northwestern's School of Communications.

Beshir lives in Brooklyn.

Awards and nominations Year Award Category Recipient Results Ref 2017 Anchorage International Film Festival Jury Award He Who Dances on Wood Black Reel Award Best Foreign Language Film Cinema Eye Honors Outstanding Non-Fiction Feature Outstanding Direction Outstanding Cinematography Outstanding Debut Critics' Choice Documentary Awards Best Cinematography Best First Documentary Feature Gotham Awards Best Documentary Visions du Réel Grand Jury Prize Fipresci International Critics Award 2022 American Society of Cinematographers Awards Documentary Award Independent Spirit Awards The Truer Than Fiction Award Her short film "Hairat," which debuted at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, marked her directorial debut.