Mati Diop Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Somebody — or something — is speaking from inside a timber crate. “It’s so dark in here… a night so deep and opaque” read the subtitles; the voice is speaking in Fon, the local language of the West African country that was once called Dahomey and is now Benin. As the slats are nailed down, the voice is increasingly muffled; we are outside, but we are inside too, watching the light disappear.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Dahomey,” the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film helmed by French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, has been sold to a raft of international territories by Les Films du Losange. Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (PT Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.

The Match Factory has locked multi-territory deals on Berlinale titles Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky and Dying by Matthias Glasner, which picked up the festival’s Silver Bear for Best Screenplay.

Christopher Vourlias Following on the heels of a successful post-pandemic reboot one year ago, the Joburg Film Festival kicks off its sixth edition on Feb. 27, with the glitzy capital of South Africa’s media and entertainment industry showcasing a selection of top talents from the host country and across the African continent.

Guy Lodge Film Critic The Berlin Film Festival drew to a close with tonight’s awards ceremony, with French-Senegalese director Mati Diop taking the Golden Bear for her documentary “Dahomey.” Full report to come; full list of winners below.

Winners have been announced at the 74th Berlin Film Festival, with Dahomey by French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop scooping the coveted Golden Bear prize as the best film of the festival’s International Competition. Scroll down for the full list of winners, which were revealed Saturday evening at the Berlinale Palast.

Jessica Kiang In November 2021, 61 years after Benin gained independence from the French empire, 26 of the many thousands of plundered national antiquities were returned by France to their African home. Inserting an inquisitive, imaginative intelligence into this key moment in the troubled timeline of post-imperial cultural politics, French-Senegalese director Mati Diop fashions her superb, short but potent hybrid doc “Dahomey” as a slim lever that cracks open the sealed crate of colonial history, sending a hundred of its associated erasures and injustices tumbling into the light.

“The first shape I had in mind for this film was fiction,” filmmaker Mati Diop told a Berlin Film Festival presser this morning when quizzed on the structure of her inventive documentary Dahomey. 

Christopher Vourlias Africa’s growing screen industries are making their mark on the global stage, with three titles in the main competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, but how to unlock the continent’s still-untapped potential was a question on the minds of many at a conference hosted on Saturday by the European Film Market. A partnership between EFM and Prudence Kolong’s Stockholm-based consulting firm Yanibes, AfroBerlin was launched to give a platform to filmmakers from Africa and the diaspora and “to find a place where they can share stories and experiences and be heard,” said Kolong, who also organizes the Cannes Film Festival’s AfroCannes industry showcase.

Titane, Leos Carax and Caleb Landry Jones are among the winners of the top prizes at Cannes 2021 – scroll down to see the full list of winners.The film festival was held in full and in-person after the coronavirus pandemic meant the 2020 physical edition was unable to go ahead as planned.This year’s Cannes jury was comprised of Spike Lee serving as president, director Mati Diop, musician Mylène Farmer, writer and director Jessica Hausner, actor and director Mélanie Laurent, writer and director

The 2021 Cannes Film Festival jury stepped out together one last time while attending the festival’s closing ceremony.

th District” and Nanni Moretti with “Three Floors” – are previous Palme d’Or winners.Spike Lee is the president of the jury that chose the winners. Other jurors on the five-women, four-men panel were directors Mati Diop, Jessica Hausner and Kleber Mendonca Filho, actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, Melanie Laurent, Tahar Rahim and Song Kang Ho and singer Mylene Farmer.The Cannes Film Festival did not take place last year, so no awards were handed out.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticCANNES — The awards show for the 2021 Cannes Film Festival competition is underway.Jury president Spike Lee presided over a majority-female group that included French-Senegalese actor-director Mati Diop, American actor-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal, Austrian director Jessica Hausner, French actor-helmer Mélanie Laurent, Brazilian helmer Kleber Mendonça Filho, French actor Tahar Rahim, South Korean actor Song Kang-ho and cult French singer Mylene Farmer.The prizes

The 2021 Cannes Film Festival is kicking off!

Spike Lee made history at the Cannes Film Festival jury press conference Tuesday.

The 74th Cannes Film Festival unveiled its jury which includes five women; a majority in the nine-person group including President Spike Lee.

Cannes 2021 will make history, as for the first time the festival’s jury will be majority female.Among the jurists are actress-director Maggie Gyllenhaal, French actress-director Mélanie Laurent, French-Senegalese actor-director Mati Diop, Austrian director Jessica Hausner and French singer Mylene Farmer.Director Spike Lee will preside over the jury, which includes Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho, South Korea’s Song Kang-ho, and French actor Tahar Rahim.More to come…

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThe Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the jury for the competition, which will be powered by a majority of women, including American actor-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal, French actor-helmer Mélanie Laurent, French-Senegalese actor-director Mati Diop, Austrian director Jessica Hausner and cult French singer Mylene Farmer.Spike Lee will presider over the jury which will also include French actor Tahar Rahim, Brazilian helmer Kleber Mendonça Filho and South

Tom Grater International Film ReporterVenice Days (Giornate Degli Autori), the independent Venice Film Festival sidebar that is under the new leadership of artistic director Gaia Furrer this year, has announced its line-up of titles, including a feature directed by artist Bruce LaBruce and new shorts from Atlantics filmmaker Mati Diop and Mug director Malgorzata Skumowksa.From more a thousand submissions, the programming team have whittled it down to just 28 titles.

French actress-filmmaker Mati Diop spent over three and a half years working on her feature directing debut “Atlantics.” The idea of telling a story about immigration was always something she had wanted to do.