From Mati Diop To Alice Diop: Two French Senagalese Female Filmmakers Who Have Made History

From Mati Diop To Alice Diop: Two French Senagalese Female Filmmakers Who Have Made History in Cannes and Venice

First it was Mati Diop, the French-Senegalese filmmaker whose first feature film "Atlantics" made her the first black female director to be in the Official Selection in competition for the Palme d'Or and won the Grand Prix equivalent of the silver prize at the 2019 annual Cannes Film Festival, making her the first black female director to win an award in Cannes' 72-year history. And another French Senegalese filmmaker, Alice Diop with the same surname has just made history as first black female filmmaker to win the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, for her first feature, "Saint Omer" and also the Lion of the Future LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS Venice Award for a debut film at the 79th annual Venice International Film Festival in 2022.

Mati Diop was born in Paris on June 22 in 1982 and Alice Diop was born in Aulnay-sous-Bois, France in 1979.

-  By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, Publisher/Editor, NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series.

The following is from an interview with Alice Diop on the making of "Saint Omer".

What led you to develop it as a narrative feature?

A documentary was never the plan. At the time, I was too busy with research, plus we couldn’t shoot in the courtroom and I would never [make the real participants] reenact the proceedings. Anyway, I wanted to recreate my experience of listening to another woman’s story while interrogating myself, facing my own difficult truths. The narrative had to trace a series of emotional states that can lead to catharsis. It’s like accelerated psychotherapy.  

https://variety.com/2022/film/festivals/venice-alice-diop-saint-omer-1235367521/

The Challenges of Ava DuVernay, Chinonye Chukwu and Mati Diop To Nigerian Female Filmmakers

 The Challenges of Ava DuVernay, Chinonye Chukwu and Mati Diop To Nigerian Female Filmmakers

The most accomplished black female filmmaker is without dispute, Ava Marie DuVernay, the outstanding award winning African American film director, producer and screenwriter. She won the directing award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her second feature film "Middle of Nowhere", becoming the first black woman to win the award. For her work on "Selma" (2014), DuVernay became the first black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director and also the first black female director to have her film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for her film, "13th" (2016).

Following in her trail blazers' status are NIgerian born Chinonye Chukwu, the first black woman to win the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Dramatic Competition, on January 27, 2019 at Sundance and the French Senegalese Filmmaker, Mati Diop who became the first black woman to make the Official Selection of the 2019 annual Cannes Film Festival in the competition for the Palme d'Or for her directorial debut feature "Atlantics" that won the Grand Prix.

DuVernay, Chukwu and Diop are highly intellectual and philosophical filmmakers who are psychologically nuanced.
They are as good as the best male directors in cinema and a big challenge to other black female filmmakers. But do we have Nigerian female filmmakers of the same intellectual calibre with them in Nigeria and the Diaspora?
Yes, we have. But they are few; including the most accomplished, Ngozi Onwurah, whose "Welcome II the Terrordome" in 1995 became the first film directed by a Black British woman to receive a UK theatrical release; Branwen Okpako; Chika Anadu; Michelle Bello; Mildred Okwo and Tope Oshin.

Ngozi Onwurah

Branwen Okpako

Mildred Okwo

Tope Oshin.

The challenges of those I mentioned who work in Nollywood are several, including the scarcity of good production designers and good actors who understand English grammar for enunciation and interpretation of characters. Majority of the actors in Nollywood and Kannywood cannot act. They just want to belong to the glitz and razzmatazz of the popularity of movie stars. These fundamental challenges have negatively impacted on the overall ratings of Nigerian movies. I have seen many examples of amateurish actors in Nigerian movies by very good filmmakers.

I look forward to seeing these ambitious Nigerian female filmmakers making groundbreaking films with cheers all the way to the top from Cannes to the Oscars.

~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima
Publisher/Editor,
NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series
https://www.amazon.com/author/ekenyerengozimichaelchima.