Mati Diop
Diop in 2024
Born	(1982-06-22)22 June 1982 (age 42) Paris, France
Occupations	Film director actress screenwriter
Years active	2004–present
Father	Wasis Diop
Relatives	Djibril Diop Mambéty (uncle)

Mati Diop (born 22 June 1982) is a French film director and actress. She won theGrand Prix at the2019 Cannes Film Festival for her feature film debut, the supernatural romantic dramaAtlantics, and theGolden Bear at the2024 Berlin International Film Festival for her second feature film, the documentaryDahomey. As an actress, she is known for the drama film35 Shots of Rum (2008).

Diop was born inParis,France. Her father,Wasis Diop, is a Senegalese musician, while her mother, Christine Brossard, is an art buyer and photographer. She is the niece of filmmakerDjibril Diop Mambéty. During her childhood, she often travelled back and forth between France and Senegal, developing a transnational identity.^[1]

Diop trained in the Advanced Degree Programme at Le Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary Art inFrance,^[2] as well as at thePalais de Tokyo in their experimental artist studio space Le Pavillon.^[3]

Diop was a fellow at theRadcliffe Institute for Advanced Study from 2014 to 2015.^[3] While a part of the institute's selective Film Study Center Fellowship Program, she wrote the script for her first feature filmFire, Next Time.^[3] She later changed the title of this film to what is now known as her directorial feature film debut,Atlantics (2019).^[4]

Diop made her directorial debut in 2004 with her short filmLast Night (2004).^[5] Her short filmAtlantiques (2009) won the Rotterdam International Film Festival's Tiger Award for Short Film, and a Top Prize at Media City Film Festival^[6] during her first North American appearance in 2009.

Her documentary shortMille Soleils^[7] was released in 2013. The film focused on actor Magaye Niang, who was the star of Diop's uncle's seminal featureTouki Bouki (1973) and explained how he had come to live as a farmer in the intervening years.^[8] The film played at the2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was later also programmed at theMuseum of Modern Art in 2014.^[9]

In 2019, she became the first black female director to have her film premiere in competition at theCannes Film Festival when her feature debutAtlantics was selected to compete for thePalme d'Or.^[4] She was one of only four women accepted into the festival in the given year.^[10] The film was a fictional adaptation of her documentary shortAtlantiques made in 2009 that followed two friends from Senegal as they made a life-threatening boat crossing to Europe.^[10][11][12] The film won theGrand Prix.^[13] It was picked up byNetflix shortly following Cannes' award announcements, however it is not a Netflix Original Film.^[14]

Diop directed a documentary,In My Room, as part of Miu Miu'sWomen's Tales series, which blended audio recordings of her maternal grandmother, Maji, with footage Diop shot of herself in her Parisian apartment during the time she was quarantined during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Diop's work has been featured at theVenice Film Festival, theNew York Film Festival, theBFI London Film Festival in 2012, and theValdivia International Film Festival,^[3] as well as theMuseum of the Moving Image in 2013.^[9]

In 2024, she won theGolden Bear at the Berlinale with the documentary,Dahomey, devoted to the question of the restitution by France of works of art stolen from Dahomey, present-day Benin.^[15][16]

Diop made her acting debut inClaire Denis' film35 Shots of Rum (2008), playing the lead role of a young woman in a close-knit relationship with her father, whom she has trouble leaving as she gets ready for marriage. She received a nomination for theLumières Award for most promising actress for her role in the film.^[9] In 2012, she appeared in the filmSimon Killer and was also credited with the story behind the script.^[17] Diop continues to act sporadically in films and television.

In their article on Diop's work up toAtlantics (2019), Lindsay Turner states that Diop's work is often concerned withtrans-nationalism, immigration, the female experience, andpost-colonialism in relation with North Africa and Europe.^[18] In order to start work onAtlantics, she began travelling to Senegal to reconnect with her African heritage. She says she found her voice in those journeys—and in her own French-Senegalese hyphenated identity.^[19] In an interview withMetal Magazine, Diop explains that she tackles cinematics and poetic aspects of her film with different perspectives due to the contrasting "sensibilities" of French and African cultures.^[20]

Diop uses aspects of magical realism in her films, examples includingAtlantics (2019),Snow Cannon (2011), andBig in Vietnam (2012).^[21] Diop can also be quoted talking about her storytelling processes, notably on how she uses sets and props to convey her plots as opposed to just characters and dialogue.^[18] During additional interviews, Diop has mentioned that she has done a majority of her own cinematography and is deeply interested in multiculturalism and multilingualism in film, as her films are often in two to three different languages.^[20][18]

Wikiquote has quotations related toMati Diop.

• Mati Diop atIMDb

• Living people
• 1982 births
• Film directors from Paris
• French people of Senegalese descent
• French film actresses
• 21st-century French actresses
• Actresses from Paris
• French women documentary filmmakers
• French documentary film directors
• French women film directors

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