5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MATI DIOP*
Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 7:33AM *APART FROM BEING THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN DIRECTOR IN THE HISTORY OF THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL TO HAVE A FILM SELECTED IN COMPETITION FOR THE PALME D’OR.
The announcement this week that Atlantique, the feature film directorial debut of 36 year-old Mati Diop, will play In Competition at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival poses the question - who is this Paris-born Senegalese filmmaker and how has she arrived at the centre of this landmark moment in film history…?
SHE IS THE NIECE OF THE LEGENDARY SENEGALESE FILMMAKER DJIBRIL DIOP MAMBETY: Alongside contemporaries Ousmane Sembene and Malian filmmaker Soulemayne Cisse, Djibril Diop Mambéty (pictured, right) was a pioneer of early African cinema, daring to challenge the impact of colonialism and the social struggles of his people in films that are now seen as artistically and narratively groundbreaking. He directed five shorts (including his final film, 1999’s global festival hit The Little Girl Who Sold The Sun) and 
only two features, but they remain films that define Senagelese cinema on the world stage – Touki Bouki (1973), a fateful, funny, endearing teenage love story; and, Hyenas (1992), a biting satire of wealth and status that earned Mambéty a Palme d’Or nomination. In 2013, Mati Diop directed the documentary short A Thousand Suns, which examines the impact her uncle’s landmark film Touki Bouki had on Senegalese culture. The family is rich in talent – her father is renowned jazz musician Wasis Diop.
SHE IS ONE OF HER NATION’S MOST RECOGNISABLE ACTRESSES: Mati Diop began directing short films at the age of 22, supplementing those early years with acting work. She was directed in her first feature by no less than the legendary Claire Denis, who cast the then 25 year-old actress as ‘Josephine’ in her 2008 drama, 35 Shots of Rum. She would do much of her on-screen work in Europe, working for such directors as Sébastien Betbeder (Yoshido, 2010); Thierry de Peretti (Sleepwalkers, 2011); Antonio Campos (Sundance Grand Jury PrIze nominee, Simon Killer, 2012, which she co-wrote); avant garde visionary Benjamin Crotty (Fort Buchanan, 2014); and, Argentinian Matías Piñeiro (the US-shot Hermia & Helena, 2016).
SHE ADAPTED HER 2009 DOCUMENTARY SHORT ‘ATLANTIQUES’ INTO HER FIRST FEATURE FILM: At a point in Senegal’s history when the poor and exploited were taking to the sea in crowded, poorly-maintained boats, Diop embedded herself with a group of young refugees (including her own cousin, Alpha) as they prepared for the perilous journey (pictured, right). The group were among the tens-of-thousands of
Senegalese who fled for Spain in the mid-2000s; in 2006, it was reported 15,000 Senegalese were apprehended by Spanish authorities, while as many as 1000 died at sea. The short, the first of five she has directed, became a film festival favourite, winning prestige honours at Cinema du Reel and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. The plight of Senegal’s displaced was also addressed in La Pirogue (2012) by a fellow first-time feature director, Moussa Toure.
HER FILM IS IN WOLOF, HER NATION'S MAIN DIALECT: Her feature retelling, co-written with Olivier Demangel (Moussem les morts, 2010; Rattrapage, 2017), was shot in Wolof, the predominant language of the Senegalese people. A co-production between funding bodies from Senegal, France and Belgium, Diop undertook a seven-week shoot with DOP Claire Mathon (Stranger by The Lake, 2013) on the Atlantic coast of the capital, Dakar. Website Cineuropa provides the following plot summary: “(The landscape is) dominated by a futuristic-looking tower that is about to be officially opened. The construction workers have not been paid for months, so they leave the country via the ocean, in search of a brighter future. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada, who is betrothed to another. Several days later, a blaze ruins the young woman’s wedding and mysterious fevers start to take hold of the local inhabitants. Little does Ada know that Souleiman has returned…”
HER EARLY WORK WAS FEATURED IN THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE’S EXPERIMENTA STRAND IN 2016: Alongside Atlantiques, the BFI programmed Diop’s early shorts Big in Vietnam (2011) and Snow Canon (2011) in their renowned festival’s Experimenta line-up, featuring works that challenge conventional narrative and aesthetic filmmaking; the BFI website described her films as “a revelation”. When asked about her interpretation of the refugee experience in Atlantiques, she said, “I chose not to treat immigration as a subject but as an individual and sensitive experience, as a kind of time travel.” Her delicate drama Snow 
Canon (featured, above), an examination of an innocent liaison between a teenage girl and her babysitter, evoked her response, “I just hope people leave the film with a special feeling or mood, one that you remember like a melody for days, weeks or forever, rather than just remembering the story itself.” In January 2018, the London Institute of Contemporary Arts screened four of her shorts (including 2015s Liberian Boy; pictured, right), describing the collection as "...phantasms of the mind...nakedly human, peopled by characters who are fearful yet resolute, consumed by desire."
READ the Screen-Space WORLD CINEMA/SENEGAL Feature here.
