Atlantics

Atlantiques

A fire glowing in the heart of the night gathers around it three men who share the experience of forced movement, as well as the thousands of spirits of people lost at sea, seeking a better future on the horizon. Opening with an evocative scene that links the wheels of the boat’s engine with the spinning wheel that winds the thread of the story, Mati Diop weaves an admirably succinct narrative about the fragments of spirits awakening from the fever of flight, which is always “a nightly invader that strikes the patient during deep sleep.” Atlantics (Atlantiques), a capsule of dense cinematic time, is like a spin-off or a prequel of the 2019 film Atlantique (also titled Atlantics in English), which made its director the first Black woman director to win an award at Cannes. As the ocean passes from the plural to the singular, we remember how often the word “spooks” has appeared on the lips of racists, and how the history of humanity is nothing but a history of migration.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Mati Diop
Script: Mati Diop
Cinematography: Mati Diop
Editing: Nicolas Milteau
Sound: Papi M’Bow, Mansour Dieng
Actors: Serigne Seck, Alpha Diop, Cheikh M’Baye, Ouli Seck et Asta M’Boup
Production: Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains
Producers: Frédéric Papon
Co-production: Anna Sanders Films
Co-producers: Corinne Castel
Format: DCP
Color: Color
Production Country: France
Production Year: 2009
Duration: 15'
Contact: Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains
Awards/Distinctions: Tiger Award for Best Short Film – Rotterdam IFF 2010, Louis Marcorelles Award-Mention – Cinéma du Réel 2010

Mati Diop

Mati Diop, born in 1982 in France, is a filmmaker and actor. She studied at Le Fresnoy (National Studio of the Contemporary Arts), Tourcoing, France, and at Le Pavillon of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. She is best known for her role in 35 Shots of Rum (2008), for which she was nominated for the Lumières Award for Most Promising Actress. Her own films – Mille Soleils (A Thousand Suns, 2013), Snow Canon (2011), Big in Vietnam (2012), and Atlantiques (2009) – have received awards in numerous international film festivals, such as the New York Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (where Atlantiques won for best short), the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Venice Film Festival. Her work has been featured by the BFI London Film Festival (2012), the Museum of the Moving Image, New York (2013), the Viennale, Vienna, and the FIC Valdivia (Valdivia International Film Festival), Chile. Her films Atlantiques and Mille Soleils were shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2014. Diop was a 2014–15 Radcliffe-Harvard Film Study Center Fellow. She lives and works in Paris.

Filmography

2004 Last Night (short)
2009 Atlantics (short)
2011 Big in Vietnam (short)
2013 A Thousand Suns (short, doc)
2019 Atlantics
2020 In My Room (short doc)