ATLANTICS
After a group of disenfranchised laborers leave Senegal in search of work, those left behind are plagued by mysterious fires, fevers, and nightly visits from restless souls.
Renowned French actress Mati Diop (35 Shots of Rum) catapults onto the international stage as a filmmaker with her haunting, award-winning feature debut, Atlantics. Under the foreboding shadow of an unfinished luxury high-rise in Senegal’s seaside capital of Dakar, a mob of frustrated construction workers demand to be compensated for three months of work. When their appeals fall on deaf ears, the men make plans to travel to Spain to find work. Amongst the disgruntled is impoverished Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré), the secret lover of local woman Ada (Mame Bineta Sane). Despite promises of a future during her late night trysts with Souleiman, Ada is pressured by her family to marry the successful, arrogant and emotionally detached businessman Omar (Babacar Sylla). But when the men mysteriously disappear on their voyage, a strange illness begins to seep into the community and troubling messages from the missing Souleiman send Ada on a hunt for the truth. Backed by an eerie synth score and stunning cinematography, Diop presents an enchanting, unique drama steeped both in timeless myth and the urgently topical stories of the current refugee crisis.
CAST: MAME BINETA SANE, AMADOU MBOW, IBRAHIMA TRAORÉ, FATOU SOUGOU
In Competition: First Feature Award
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