Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Paris-born filmmaker Mati Diop, 42, has created two full-length feature films: 2019\u2019s Senegal-set drama Atlantics, which won the Grand Prix in\u00a0Cannes that same year, and last year\u2019s documentary Dahomey, which explores the repatriation of looted artworks from Paris to Benin. For this issue, Diop chose to be interviewed by her friend, British musician Dev Hynes. The Essex-raised Hynes, 39, has been a prolific singer-songwriter for 20 years, garnering particular acclaim for his solo albums under the\u00a0name Blood Orange. They became friends when Hynes asked her to work on a project, which ended up being a collaboration between them and another director, Manon Lutanie \u2013 for\u00a0the short film Naked Blue, Diop and Lutanie co-directed, and Hynes composed an orchestral score. \u201cIt\u00a0felt\u00a0like a conversation,\u201d is how Diop puts it. Today, they continue that conversation.DEV HYNES: I feel like, with your films, I can see you\u00a0in\u00a0them.MATI DIOP: Oh, yeah. That\u2019s absolutely accurate. I mean, I\u2019m in them; they are in me. I think we can say that for a couple of filmmakers, if not necessarily all of them. Like, for example, we\u2019ve been sharing our mutual admiration for Mia Hansen-L\u00f8ve\u2019s work. Not only because she speaks of herself, but also because there is this special texture that is hers. Like Claire Denis\u2019 unique vibe. I dream my films very deep before I make them and they stay with me. I always say that my music-making is from a place of being a fan \u2013 that idea of when you\u2019re younger, and you had posters on your wall. And I still make music from that place. So I\u2019m wondering: were there films or characters or musicians that, when you were younger, were turning points? Were there characters you wanted to be or that inspired you?Kids by Larry Clark, which I discovered at the age of 13, was a shock because I could finally identify with teenagers of my age. Something about them was so much more inspiring than what was happening around me\u00a0in France. I was growing up in Paris, in a\u00a0quite boring neighbourhood, the 12th arrondissement. When I saw the film, the characters became the centre of the world to me, it was everything. Their style was beyond cool but it was also about the city, the urban culture and how these kids were taking the space, the streets, through skate, through drugs, through music. As soon as I saw that film, I started to dress exactly like them. It was a shift. My fascination for the New York underground scene began there and the influence kept growing with John Cassavetes, Harmony Korine, Abel Ferrara and the work of Nan Goldin.I get that. I feel like it\u2019s not the same now, maybe just because of the internet, and maybe even the state of America. But I do feel there is something to be said about when we were younger, and that European-American divide. I felt that too. This thing of \u201cWhy wasn\u2019t I born there?\u201d Or \u201cWhat is this world? I want to be inside it!\u201dWhen you discovered that scene, were you in England? Yeah. I didn\u2019t move to New York until I was 21. You were in Essex\u2026 Which I can\u2019t really picture.Umm\u2026 Have you seen Fish Tank [the 2009 film by Andrea Arnold set on an east London council estate]? Yes. That social background had come to look quite attractive in the film. But I guess it\u2019s another thing when you are a teenager in the 1990s living in the suburbs \u2013 it must feel anything but cool.Yeah. It couldn\u2019t be further away. But, you know, it\u2019s funny. The British have a history of showing the working class on TV and in film. If you think of British film and TV off the top of your head, the things that will probably come to mind will probably be of the working class.Through Ken Loach?Yes, or Mike Leigh. So growing up like that is weird because it\u2019s a bit of both. On one hand, you\u2019re from it, and so you\u2019re a little bit over it and you don\u2019t want it to exist. But then at the same time, it shines a light on it\u2026 It shows the beauty in it. But at the same time, you don\u2019t want to be there! But then also what\u2019s strange is that a lot of those filmmakers are not from there. Oh wow, that\u2019s a very important thing to know. It\u2019s a good thing that this is being questioned more today. The debate doesn\u2019t always go in the right direction, but fortunately we are at a time when people are more critical about who is more or less legitimate to tell this or that story.What really led me to make Atlantics is the urge to have\u00a0African narratives and Black faces being strongly represented in global cinema. It felt like a mission that haunted me for many years. The more distance I have gained from the film, the more I\u2019ve understood that the main idea was to create a film that would make us, African people and Black people in general, fall in love with ourselves again.This extreme attraction I felt towards a certain American white cinema in my early 20s was complex as a\u00a0Black woman. Falling in love with a world, wanting to belong to a world that does not represent you as a Black [African] woman is tricky and toxic. I was aware of that alienation but still the attraction was too strong. At some\u00a0point, I felt the need to cut myself off from this hegemonic white culture. Despite all the obsessions I had\u00a0with its music or its cinema, I really needed to emancipate myself from it. Also, in the meantime, around the 2000s, it felt like Black representations were so off-screen and marginalised. Non-existent. This phenomenon of invisibility is not a coincidence, it is a project inherited from the colonial era. As the niece\u00a0of one of the most major African filmmakers, Djibril\u00a0Diop Mamb\u00e9ty, I had to face this reality and think\u00a0very clearly about what was going to be, through cinema, my engagement. What was I going to stand for? For me, there were two ways. First, to make my first feature film in France, as a Frenchwoman, and propose my own version of The Virgin Suicides. I refer to this film because it has had a profound impact on the generation of women filmmakers that I belong to. We were 18 when we discovered this masterpiece. I feel that, unconsciously, many of the first feature films of\u00a0our generation were madly under its influence. I was obsessed with it myself. Especially by the score composed by Air. It\u2019s one of the most haunting scores ever.Yes. I\u2019m still referencing that score.The other path I chose was to make my first feature film in Dakar. To make my own dark teenage romance film from Africa, from the perspective of African youth. The truth is that, initially, I\u00a0was supposed to adapt a very dark novel set in Norway called The Ice Palace, by a writer called Tarjei Vesaas. A\u00a0story about a friendship between two young girls set in\u00a0a small village containing a waterfall that turns into an ice palace in winter. This novel is the essence of dark romanticism. I was completely obsessed with it, and for years, I wanted it to become my first feature, until I\u00a0decided to fight against the idea of making a first feature\u00a0film with two white teenage girls. I decided to fight the idea of the western world as the centre. I quite radically decided to set my cinema in Dakar, to reset the\u00a0axis of gravity of desire. It felt so urgent, in many ways, to speak from another place. It was also my way to reclaim\u00a0my Africanness. Although in the end, Atlantics is still\u00a0pretty much a gothic tale.Among very different films like Moonlight by Barry Jenkins (2016) and Black Panther (2018), I believe that Atlantics is one of the artworks that is responsible\u00a0for the\u00a0shift we have been witnessing the past\u00a0couple of years. Believe me, when I started making films in Africa\u00a0back in 2008, Black people were everything\u00a0but \u201chype\u201d.\u00a0They were the opposite of hype. It\u00a0was like\u2026 who\u00a0cares about Black people? Even more: who cares about Africans? No-bo-dy. It wasn\u2019t even a subject, you\u00a0know? After Black Lives Matter, we know how the\u00a0fashion industry was literally forced to include us. The undesirables suddenly became the obsession of everybody \u2013 until it changes again. Anyway, from my perspective, I guess what I\u2019ve been trying to do through Atlantics is to create a\u2026 how do you say renversement?A reversal?Yeah. A reversal.I really like that. [Talking about The Virgin Suicides], you touched on something that I feel strongly about. I\u00a0have so many musician friends who don\u2019t listen to music when they\u2019re making music. Whereas I listen to a shocking amount of music.I know you do. Like, a psychotic amount of music!And you watch a lot of films too!Yeah, exactly. And there\u2019s not a second that I\u2019m scared of that. If anything, I want the input [from outside], because I believe that if there\u2019s something that I love, the influence becomes me making my version of it. Like you making your version of The Virgin Suicides. It\u2019s obviously not a recreation, but it\u2019s just the feeling, the impact, what it means to you. To me, that\u2019s what the influence is. You\u2019re the human filter, you know? And so that belief allows me to take everything in. Yeah. Also, nothing makes me more excited than to discover a new creation from the next generation. I mean, to really discover a new language; to really see it coming to life. But I do think I absorb much less material than you. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s because of fear \u2013 I think it\u2019s more because I\u2019m a little more invaded by my own creative process.I feel like film occupies more space in the head. Yes. Cinema is pretty heavy. But did I tell you the main reason why I didn\u2019t become a musician? It was my first vocation, as you know \u2013 I sang and played bass when I was younger, and made soundtracks for plays. It\u2019s the relationship to time. For me, becoming a musician was almost like being confronted with infinity. It was almost like jumping into the void. The immateriality of it: it gives\u00a0me vertigo, you know?To me, it feels like music is this thing that\u2019s continuously burning and you\u2019re just adding more coal to it. I think about it like, OK, well, how can I place this music in a certain way? And when should I place it? I feel like you can reach people more deeply through music, emotionally. But you can be way more politically impactful through cinema. That\u2019s why I chose it. Choosing cinema was also kind of a compromise between all the arts. Making films is being able to be a little bit of everything, being at the crossroads of music, dance, painting, fashion, politics, philosophy\u2026 In cinema you can really be a full artist, but there is a hyper-structure to it that, for me, feels less abstract and solitary than music. In fact, I was afraid of losing my mind if I became a musician. Mati Diop at Supreme Agency. First assistant, Bertin Colin. Make-up, Ellen Walge. Hair, N\u00e9n\u00e9 Barry. Nails, Saloua Derbali. Executive producer, Andr\u00e9a Fonseca. Production, Mosi Schemes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Paris-born filmmaker Mati Diop, 42, has created two full-length feature films: 2019\u2019s Senegal-set drama Atlantics, which won the Grand Prix in\u00a0Cannes that same year, and last year\u2019s documentary Dahomey, which explores the repatriation of looted artworks from Paris to Benin. For this issue, Diop<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":297353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-297352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297354,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297352\/revisions\/297354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}