LSFF: Bechdel Test Fest presents Mati Diop: The Life Faraway

Bechdel Test Fest celebrate the work of Senegalese-French filmmaker and actress Mati Diop and her dreamlike ruminations on space, place and home, screening a selection of her short films accompanied by readings and reflections. 

Programme

• Liberian Boy, co-directed with Manon Lutanie, France 2015, 5 mins
• Big In Vietnam, France 2013, 34 mins
• Snow Canon, France 2011, 34 mins
• Atlantiques, France 2009, 15 mins

Drifting and dreamy, Mati Diop's films proceed (sometimes haphazardly) like phantasms of the mind, travelling over bodies that are magnetically drawn together, whether it be for comfort or lust (or especially the interstice where the two meet), or in order to access distant lands that are remembered, yearned for, or fancifully concocted. As if enveloped by a flushed, hallucinatory heat, her films emanate steam even in cold climes.

Above all, they are nakedly human, peopled by characters who are fearful yet resolute, consumed by desire and full of gumption, who ultimately interrupt the seemingly helpless flow of their lives by taking risks, by fleeing, by exercising their intuition and, most importantly, by being vulnerable in their solitude. - Andrea Picard, CinemaScope

The ICA Cinema is completely ad-free. All films are 18+ unless otherwise stated