Netflix acquires Cannes winners ‘Atlantique,’ ‘I Lost My Body’

Hot off their wins at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Netflix has snapped up the rights to Grand Prize winner Atlantique (Atlantics) from Mati Diop and the animated I Lost My Body from Jérémy Clapin.

Diop was the first black woman director to have a film in the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival and the first ever to win the fest’s Grand Prize. Netflix will have the worldwide rights to the film (excluding China, Benelux, Switzerland, Russia, France), about a girl named Ada, 17, who 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 hopes of a better future. Several days later, a fire ruins Ada’s wedding and a mysterious fever starts to spread. Little does Ada know that Souleiman has returned.

Cannes Review: ‘Atlantique’

Mati Diop trained in Le Fresnoy (National Studio of Contemporary Arts – a leading and very selective French artistic institution), Mati Diop directed four shorts and a medium-length film which received the “Martin E. Segal – Emerging Artist Award” of the Lincoln Center (USA) in 2016. A Thousand Suns (2013), Big In Vietnam (2011), Snow Canon (2010) and Atlantiques (2009) were selected and awarded in a wide number of international festivals such as the Venice International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Viennale, The Indie Lisboa International Film Festival, and the FID Marseille. They were also programmed in the MoMA and in the Moving Image Museum (USA).  As an actress, Mati Diop played in Hermia Y Helena by director Matias Piñeiro (2015), Fort Buchanan by Benjamin Crotty (2014), Simon Killer by Antonio Campos (2012) and 35 Shots Of Rhum by Claire Denis (2008).

Netflix will manage the worldwide rights (excluding China, Benelux, Turkey, France) to I Lost My Body (J’ai perdu mon corps), a film by Jérémy Clapin, produced by Marc du Pontavice, which made its world premiere in the Critics Week section at the Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews. It was named the best film of the independent International Critics’ Week section of the festival and awarded the Nespresso Grand Prize in the section, which consists of seven features and 10 short films. The animated film is about a cut-off hand that escapes from a dissection lab with one crucial goal: to get back to its body. As it scrambles through the pitfalls of Paris, it remembers its life with the young man it was once attached to… until they met Gabrielle.

Cannes Review: ‘I Lost My Body’

Toward the end of 90s, Jérémy Clapin studied animation and illustration at the Paris École des Arts Décoratifs. He graduated in 1999 and in 2000 began working as an illustrator. In 2004, he shot his first short film, Une histoire vertébrale, which was warmly received in festivals. In 2008, he directed Skhizein, where he tells the story of a man hit by a meteor and who finds himself 91 centimeters from his body, which has become invisible. Jérémy Clapin continued his activity in advertising, then in 2012 made Palmipedarium, where he experimented with a new manner of making animation that came closer to real shots. I Lost My Body is his first feature-length film.