Atlantics (Atlantique)
Mati Diop’s feature debut harnesses fantasy and social relevancy in a haunting tale of love. The film won the Grand Prix du Jury during the Cannes Film Festival.
Along the Atlantic coast, a soon-to-be-inaugurated futuristic tower looms over a suburb of Dakar. Ada, 17, is in love with Souleiman, a young construction worker. But she has been promised to another man. One night, Souleiman and his co-workers leave the country by sea, in hope of a better future. Several days later, a fire ruins Ada’s wedding and a mysterious fever starts to spread. Little does Ada know that Souleiman has returned.
Like the works of Claire Denis, Diop’s film rejects a simple narrative framework, instead focusing on the poetic and thoughtful, with politics that simmer beneath the surface. And like her uncle, the iconic filmmaker Senegalese Djibril Diop Mambéty – whose work also explored migration – she refuses a reductive portrait of those dreaming of a better life.