Abstract
A luxurious skyscraper being built in precarious conditions by construction workers demanding pay for their labour. The opening scene of the film Atlantics [Atlantique] (2019) captures the employment instability and social inequalities endured by a group of workers in Senegal. In the context of economic and urban marginalization, once these men are fired, they decide to leave their homeland. They attempt to illegally migrate in a boat to Spain, but they drown in their passage. However, this is not the story of the migrating men but of the women that stayed behind in Dakar. The film focuses on the lives of the dead men’s girlfriends and wives whose life is altered by the departure. In this paper, I situate the work of filmmaker Mati Diop in the global context of women film directors engaged in intersectional debates on environment, gender, and race. I analyze this film through the theory of the zombie to understand how Mati Diop appropriates the myth to grant women the power to resist contemporary forms of slavery, while at the same time establishing parallels with transatlantic slave displacement since the colonization of the Caribbean. I analyze the use of the myth to represent female solidarity the filmmaker proposes in order to counteract systemic intersectional oppressions.
Presenters
Victoria JaraStudent, PhD. Comparative Literature, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Gender, Migration, Labour, Aesthetics, Film, Inequality
