EXCLUSIVE: After clinching the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2019 together with her debut fiction function Atlantics, French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop had one burning want.
“My dream was to set up a film school in Dakar,” she tells Deadline.
Diop made historical past that 12 months in Cannes as the primary Black girl to compete within the pageant’s official competitors. She clocked an identical milestone in February when she grew to become the primary Black filmmaker to win Berlin’s Golden Bear with the ingenious documentary Dahomey.
Borrowing its title from the traditional West African kingdom of Dahomey, situated within the south of at this time’s Republic of Benin, the doc opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the previous Kingdom are about to depart Paris to return to their nation of origin. Along with 1000’s of others, the artifacts had been plundered by French colonial troops in 1892.
Dahomey is Diop’s second function undertaking and the primary from Fanta Sy, the Dakar-based manufacturing home she quietly launched earlier this 12 months together with her artistic associate Fabacary Assymby Coly, a Senegalese trade veteran. The firm is the results of Diop’s preliminary movie faculty ambitions.
Fabacary Assymby Coly and Mati Diop with their ‘Dahomey’ producers Eve Robin and Judith Lou Lévy (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images).
“The idea is also to use my network to help the films we support be shown in festivals and distributed around the world,” she says.
Very little info has been revealed concerning the firm and its technique — till now. Below, Diop and Coly communicate with us about why they determined to launch Fanta Sy, the corporate’s targets, the tasks they’re considering making, and the way they plan to assist a brand new era of “daring” African tales.
DEADLINE: The title Fanta Sy. What does it imply and why did you select it?
MATI DIOP: I selected the title the identical method I often discover the title of a movie. A title ought to announce the colour and evoke a narrative. Fanta Sy has many inspirations. First, it’s a nod to “Anna Sanders Films,” the primary producers who trusted and supported me once I made my first quick movie in Dakar (Atlantics, 2009). Fanta Sy additionally comes from an African title I’m significantly keen on: “Fanta,” made world-famous by Alpha Blondy’s magnificent 80s tune “Fanta Diallo.” Fanta can be the primary title of one of many characters in Atlantique. I’m guessing the surname “Sy” rings a bell. It’s humorous to suppose additionally it is the title of one of the crucial well-liked French actors, although it’s usually West African. Fanta Sy can be “Fantasy,” which suggests a selected sensitivity to style. Whether actual or fictional, we’d prefer to encourage movies that carry a imaginative and prescient and assume a proper ambition.
DEADLINE: Mati and Fabacary, how did you first meet?
FABACARY ASSYMBY COLY: I can’t bear in mind. Lol
DIOP: Me neither, which most likely means we’ve been working collectively for a very long time. Our first collaboration dates again to 2012 when Fabacary and I managed the whole preparation of my movie Mille Soleils (A Thousand Suns) collectively. As the author and director, I used to be very a lot concerned within the manufacturing. Fabacary held a number of positions: manufacturing supervisor and assistant director. Our collaboration labored nicely and was fluid.
DEADLINE: And the place did you get the concept of organising a manufacturing firm?
COLY: After Atlantics received the Cannes Prize in 2019, Mati expressed the need to share her expertise and assist younger Senegalese and, extra broadly, African authors. I used to be already doing this in Senegal however in a really casual method. We began occupied with it and got here up with the concept of organising an organization to hold out our ambitions.
DIOP: Initially, my dream was to arrange a movie faculty in Dakar. This want got here from the identical place as my intention to interact my cinema on this territory, which I’ve been doing since 2008 and to which I’ve devoted all my time to date. Making movies, founding a faculty, and organising an organization should not the identical factor, however so far as I’m involved, all of it stems from the identical want to go on the message. The concept can be to make use of my community to assist the movies we assist be proven in festivals and distributed world wide. After Atlantics, the place Fabacary served as a creative collaborator, I started to see him as a possible producer of my subsequent movies in Senegal. I additionally determined to develop into a co-producer on my movies.
DEADLINE: Fabacary, folks will know Mati extra internationally because of her work. What is your background and the way did you find yourself right here?
COLY: After finishing an audiovisual coaching course in Dakar in 1998, I took a number of workshops in capturing, directing, and scriptwriting. For the previous twenty years, along with directing my very own movies (3), I’ve labored with a number of authors on their tasks as cinematographer, 1st assistant director, manufacturing supervisor, and producer.
DIOP: I just like the story our totally different backgrounds inform. Fabacary is a key participant in Senegalese cinema, embodying native know-how. I embody one other actuality of Senegalese cinema, which has succeeded in establishing itself on the world stage. This proves to younger folks that movies conceived and shot regionally can exist, in their very own language, and have legitimacy on this world.
DEADLINE: Is the corporate based mostly in Dakar?
DIOP: Absolutely.
DEADLINE: What are the corporate’s targets? What tasks would you want to hold out?
COLY: The purpose is to determine younger authors by writing workshops, and to assist them within the making of their movies.
DEADLINE: Mati, in an Instagram submit, you mentioned that the corporate will purpose to spotlight “the emergence of new filmic writing” from the African continent. What does that imply?
DIOP: That means considering outdoors the field, reinventing ourselves, and daring to discover new horizons. Above all, the concept is to hearken to the distinctiveness of every particular person we work with and to encourage them to forge their very own imaginative and prescient.
DEADLINE: What sort of partnerships do you hope to develop as an organization? Both on the continent and elsewhere.
COLY: The kind of partnership we’re in search of is before everything monetary and technical assist from the Senegalese authorities and organizations that assist the movie trade so we may give the absolute best assist to the authors we develop.
DIOP: Of course, we’re additionally contemplating worldwide co-productions, as we did on Dahomey with France and Benin.
DEADLINE: What are you not considering doing?
DIOP: I’m not considering producing a movie in Senegal that tells our tales, however is shot in French or English, with out an African principal solid. That’s my pink line.
What developments are you noticing on the continent in the meanwhile?
COLY:: In Africa, we’re seeing increasingly daring tales – political, social, fantastical – which are wildly ingenious, and for documentaries, they’re usually instructed within the first particular person. We’re seeing increasingly authors documenting historical past and depicting actuality with an aesthetic that’s subtle and assertive.