Hello, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Directors' Cut, a podcast by the Directors Guild of America,

featuring today's top directors sharing behind-the-scenes stories of their latest films and insights into the craft of directing.

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In this episode, director Mati Diab takes us behind the scenes of her film, Atlantics.

Set in the outskirts of Dakar on Senegal's Atlantic coast, the film tells the story of a young woman who is in love with a construction

worker but is already promised to another man. After the construction worker is lost at sea

and the devastated woman prepares to go through with her original wedding, strange things begin to

happen that may thwart her plans. Atlantics was screened as part of the DGA's Global Cinema Series, which aims to spotlight

landmark foreign films for DGA members and guests by presenting screenings of contemporary,

classic, and independent films, as well as conversations with their directors.

Ms. Diopp made history as the first black woman ever to compete in the Cannes Film Festival.

Atlantics was nominated for the Palm Door and took home the grand jury prize.

The film garnered Ms. Diop a DGA Award nomination for outstanding directorial achievement of a first-time feature film director

and a Senegal's official Academy Awards entry for Best International Feature.

Her other directorial credits include the documentary feature A Thousand Sons,

the documentary short Atlantecique, and the short film's Snow Cannon, Big in Vietnam, and Liberian Boy.

Following the Global Cinema Series screening of the film at the DGA Theatre in New

York, Ms. Diopp spoke with director Michael Almeriadeh about filming Atlantics. Listen on for their

spoiler-filled conversation. Thank you for inviting me to do this.

I saw a link to the film yesterday, and then it's even better, of course, to see it on a big screen.

It's incredible. One of the pleasures of it is the way it moves from having the feel of a documentary, then it moves into this realm of the uncanny, it goes from the natural to the supernatural,

and it seems so beautifully balanced between the two.

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