Mati Diop is a French film director and actress. She won the Grand Prix at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival for her feature film debut, the supernatural romantic drama Atlantics, and the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival for her second feature film, the documentary Dahomey. She trained in the Advanced Degree Programme at Le Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary Art in France, as well as at the Palais de Tokyo in their experimental artist studio space Le Pavillon. She was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study from 2014 to 2015. While a part of the institute’s selective Film Study Center Fellowship Program, she wrote the script for her first feature film Fire, Next Time, which she later changed to what is now known as her directorial feature film debut, Atlantics (2019). She made her directorial debut in 2004 with her short film Last Night (2004). Her short film Atlantiques (2009) won the Rotterdam International Film Festival’s Tiger Award for Short Film, and a Top Prize at the Media City Film Festival during her first North American appearance in 2009. Her documentary short Mille Soleils was released in 2013. The film played at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was later also programmed at the Museum of Modern Art in 2014. In 2019, she became the first Black female director to have her film premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival when her feature debut Atlantics was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or. The film won the Grand Prix and was picked up by Netflix. Diop’s work has been featured at the Venice Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival in 2012, and the Valdivia International Film Festival as well as the Museum of the Moving.