FOCUS ON CANNES 2019: ATLANTICS —MATI DIOP

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. A few days after the departure of the boys, a fire devastates Ada’s wedding party, while a mysterious fever starts to spread. Could Souleiman be back for Ada?

French-Senegalese actress/writer/director Mati Diop screens her debut premiere feature in Competition with "Antlantics." 

Mati Diop is the daughter of Senegalese jazz musician Wasis Diop, and niece to the late,  Senegalese filmmaker, actor, orator, composer and poet Djibril Diop Mambéty (see films, “Touki Bouki” and “Hyènes”). Diop starred opposite Alex Descas in  Claire Denis’s “35 Shots of Rum.” 

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FOCUS ON CANNES 2019: JEANNE —BRUNO DUMONT

"A musical that tells Joan of Arc’s story through her victorious battles against the English, court case and death, burnt at the stake."

Man alive! 

Dumont is one of Cinema's most inventive, and innovative, auteurs. Dumont's films transport the viewer to unknown yet familiar dramatic realms where magical realism thrives. "Jeanne" sees Dumont stepping into a musical dialectic that is certain to vibrate with universal energies. As thematically oblique as Dumont's films ("Camille Claudel 1915" or "Slack Bay") might seem on the surface, you can savor filmic satire as theatrically fresh and politically relevant as anything the Group Theater did in American in the '30s. 

Lise Leplat Prudhomme promises a breakout performance in the title role. "Jeanne" is being screened in the festival's Un Certain Regard section.

"Bruno Dumont directed his first feature film at the age of thirty-eight: La vie de Jésus(1996), shot in Bailleul, where he was born. This film earned him immediate acclaim: it was selected for the Director's Fortnight, winning a Caméra d'Or Special Mention. Creating demanding, singular and raw works of cinema, Bruno Dumont returned to Cannes in 1999, in Competition, with L'humanité. He was awarded the Grand Prix and a double Best Performance prize for two of the films non-professional actors."

"Bruno Dumont moved away from Northern France to shoot Twenty-nine Palms in the Californian desert, a road movie that was selected for the Venice Mostra in 2003. In 2006, Flandres, a harsh film about the devastation caused by war, received the Grand Prix at the Festival de Cannes." 

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FOCUS ON CANNES 2019: DYLDA (BEANPOLE) —KANTEMIR BALAGOV

"1945, Leningrad. World War II has devastated the city, demolishing its buildings and leaving its citizens in tatters, physically and mentally. Although the siege - one of the worst in history - is finally over, life and death continue their battle in the wreckage that remains. Two young women, Iya and Masha, search for meaning and hope in the struggle to rebuild their lives amongst the ruins."

"Kantemir Balagov was born in 1991 in Nalchik, capital of the autonomous Russian Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. He undertook studies in Economy then Law and directed several web mini-series shot on a still camera before discovering that Alexandre Sokurov had opened a film school in his home town. At the end of their interview, Sokurov placed him directly in the third year study group. He directed several short films, then armed with his first feature script, he was able to raise the money, with Sokurov’s help, to make Closeness, which premiered in Un Certain Regard 2017, where he won a FIPRESCI prize. "Dylda," Balagov's film about women who fought as soldiers trying to rejoin civil society after the Second World War, is being screened in the festival's Un Certain Regard section.

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