Senegal selects ‘Atlantics’ for International Feature Film Oscar

Grand Prix winner Mati Diop made history as the first black female director to compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in its 72-year history 

Senegal has selected Mati Diop’s feature debut Atlantics as the country’s official  entry for the Best International Feature Film category to the 92nd Academy Awards. 

Atlantics premiered in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Prix. The film is Diop’s feature directorial debut and she is the first black woman to compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.  The film went on to play Toronto Film Festival, where Diop was awarded the inaugural Mary Pickford Award, recognizing emerging female talent. Atlantics next screens at BFI London Film Festival, and will debut in the US at the New York Film Festival next week. 

2020 Oscars: Official Submissions for International Feature Film

Netflix acquired worldwide rights on the film (excluding China, Benelux, Switzerland, Russia, and France) following its debut at Cannes. The film will be released in select theaters on November 15th, and on Netflix on November 29. Producers are Les Films du Bal, Cinekap and Frakas. 

Review: ‘Atlantics’ (Atlantique) is beautiful, painful and poetic

Set in Senegal, the film initially follows the blossoming love between young construction worker Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré), who’s being exploited by his rich boss, and Ada (Mama Sané), about to enter into an unwanted arranged marriage with a wealthier man. Souleiman and his fed-up coworkers soon disappear during an attempt to migrate to Spain in a pirogue, yet somehow his presence is still quite literally felt in Dakar.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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