This haunting refugee story draws on elements of romance, loss, grief, family struggles, and the supernatural.

ATLANTICS (dir. Mati Diop, Senegal/France/Belgium, 2019)

April 12 screening will include a discussion with Cheikh Ndiaye, Professor of French & Francophone Studies and Director of Africana Studies at Union College

Atlantics (Mati Diop, 2019), awarded a Grand Prix at Cannes, is a women-centered ghost story about migration and an indictment of neocolonial labor exploitation. It begins as the tale of the unsanctioned love between Ada, (Mame Bineta Sane), Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré), a construction worker, cheated out of his wages, who sets sail for Europe. A searing denunciation of global capitalism, Atlantics revises genre, weaving together elements of the crime drama, horror film, fantasy and supernatural possession.

After a group of unpaid construction workers disappears at sea one night in search of a better life abroad, the women they have left behind in Dakar are overwhelmed with a mysterious fever.  Ada, 17, secretly grieves for her love Souleiman, one of the departed workers, but she has been promised to another man. After a fire breaks out on her wedding night, a young policeman is sent to investigate the crime. Little does he know that the aggrieved workers have come back as haunting, possessive spirits.  While many of them seek vengeance for their unpaid labor, Souleiman has come back for a different purpose – to be with his Ada one last time.

Cheikh M. Ndiaye is currently on the faculty of Union College in Schenectady, New York. Ndiaye holds a Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies from the University of Connecticut and an M.A. ès Lettres from the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal. He teaches courses on pre colonial, colonial, and postcolonial literatures with a focus on Francophone regions, including West Africa, North Africa, and the Caribbean. His scholarship is interdisciplinary and primarily cross-listed with French and Francophone Studies, Africana Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Ndiaye has published book chapters and peer-reviewed articles on Africa and its diaspora through various lenses (language, literature, ethnicity, spirituality, colonial history, etc.). His new book, Ahmadu Bamba and Decolonization: The Power of Faith and Self-Reliance, with Lexington Books, will be released in February 2025. Ndiaye served as Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Union College from 2010 to 2013 and as President of NYASA (New York African Studies Association) from 2019 to 2021. He is currently the Director of the Africana Studies Program at Union College. Ndiaye also leads study-abroad programs with college students in France, Martinique, Senegal, and most recently Morocco.