Award-winning French-Senegalese Filmmaker, Mati Diop, has released the official trailer to her upcoming feature film, “Atlantics”.
Set in Dakar Senegal, the film is based on Diop’s 2009 short film, “Atlantique”.
“Atlantics” follows the story of a group of unpaid construction workers who disappear at sea one night in search of a better life abroad; the women they have left behind in Dakar are overwhelmed with a mysterious fever.
Ada, 17, secretly grieves for her love Souleiman, one of the departed workers, but she has been promised to another man. After a fire breaks out on her wedding night, a young policeman is sent to investigate the crime.
Little does he know that the aggrieved workers have come back as haunting, possessive spirits.
While many of them seek vengeance for their unpaid labor, Souleiman has come back for a different purpose- to be with his Ada one last time.
Diop made history as the first Black woman with a film in the Competition section of the Cannes Film Festival.
It could make history once again at the Oscars, as Atlantics is Senegal’s official entry for Best International Feature Film.
If nominated, it would be the very first film from Senegal to get nominated for the Oscar.
The film, which is the feature film directorial debut of Diop, also won the grand price at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It stars Abdou Balde, Aminata Kane, Ibrahima Mbaye, Nicole Sougou, Babacar Sylla and others.
It is set to hit cinemas from November 15 and Netflix on November 29.
Watch trailer below:
By: The Arubayi Keme