Mati Diop
Mati Diop is a French-Senegalese filmmaker, actress, and visual artist born in Paris in 1982. She comes from a prominent Senegalese artistic family; her father is musician Wasis Diop, her mother, Christine Brossard, is a white French art buyer and photographer and her uncle was the acclaimed filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty. Diop began her career in visual art and short films before gaining recognition as an actress and filmmaker. She made her acting debut in Claire Denis' film 35 Shots of Rum (2008). Her breakthrough feature film, Atlantics (2019), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. Her 2024 documentary Dahomey won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Diop's work often explores colonial history, migration, memory, identity, and the relationship between Africa and Europe. She combines documentary and fiction with experimental visual and sound techniques, making her one of the prominent voices in contemporary African and diasporic cinema.