- Hi I'm Krista Smith, and welcome to The Corner Booth,
and I am sitting here with writer/director, Mati Diop.
And we're gonna talk about her film "Atlantics".
(intense music)
(women speaking in a foreign language)
(soft music)
This movie is something like I've never seen before.
One, it's so beautifully shot, the music, the ocean,
the actors, but it tells the story
from the point of view of a young woman.
Where did this story come from?
Why this point of view?
- It was indeed, I think important to propose
a different point of view.
Just to re-contextualize the social economy period,
and the reason why I chose the point of view
of a young woman,
first of all, I think I needed to talk also,
about my own feeling on it and on a sensitivity about it.
There's a moment where I realized
that I didn't have the right
to talk about the Senegalese youth only as a youth
who wants to go away and to, because there's another youth
who stays stays in the country, who has an extremely
vital force and the fact to, I wanted to
to dedicate this film to the lost youth,
but with their living, with the youth that's here and that,
who is alive, and to show the complexity of this youth,
through different characters, different personalities.
To avoid stereotypes or cliches or, and Africa carries
a lot of cliches and stereotypes
and one of my mission in this film was to break all these
cliches that I could not stand anymore, myself.
(speaking a foreign language)
- How did you find your leading lady,
'cause she is incredible?
- I need somebody who knows what he's talking about,
who can defend this character and who has a social
relationship to the character.
It's very important for me, it's an ethic
and a moral approach to casting.
It's not enough for me to be magnetic or good-looking
or a great actor, you also have to defend something
and to know what you're talking about.
I actually need my actors to know even better
than myself about the character, but I really need them to
not just act, but to really defend a purpose.
So, Ada had a great casting director
working with me, but we couldn't find her.
I was scouting in Sahara, where the film was shot,
I saw a young woman coming out of a house
and then coming in like, (snaps fingers)
like very subliminal.
And I continued walking, and then I stopped,
like I said wait, I just saw somebody who's age
and appearance could work, but it's not enough,
I had to check with the parents and little by little,
I found out that she was the one.
- It's a ghost story, it's a thriller,
it's a love story, it's a family story.
It's just miraculous how you weave all of this into
one, two hour movie.
- Thank you, thank you, yeah, it's very intertwined
and even very multi-dimensional.
I think it's one of the reasons why I chose cinema,
another art is to be able to depict the complexity
of historical and social and sentimental life and realities.
It's a wonderful tool to be able to capture,
yeah, the complexity of life.
- Of life, yeah. - Yeah.
- Well, it's lovely to meet you,
I'm so happy you're directing,
and I can't wait to see more of your work.
- Thank you for your words on the--
- Yeah, I know, it's fantastic.