Mati Diop
“Snow Canon”
Super 16 transferred to 35mm, color, sound, 33'
Introduced by María Palacios Cruz
Year: 2011
Snow Canon explores the development of a peculiar and intense relationship between two girls, whose lives are brought together in an outlandish set in the French Alps. The film offers brilliant insights into youth imaginary, which are disclosed throughout the suspended situation which Vanina and her au pair are living.
María Palacios Cruz: Mati Diop’s filmography is one that resists easy categorisations and geographical borders, drifting between the shores of Senegal and France. But whereas Atlantiques (2009), Big in Vietnam (2012) and Mille Soleils (2013) are tales of longing and displacement shot in a quasi-documentary style, Snow Canon (2011) is a story of teenage desire set against the backdrop of a holiday chalet in the wealthy French Alps. Compared to your other work, Snow Canon represents a departure from documentary film, as well as from a more artisanal approach to filmmaking. Were you concerned about losing the sense of immediacy of your earlier work, and how did you attempt to preserve it?
Mati Diop: Each of my films responds to a different mode of production and fabrication, which is determined by the means at my disposal, the urgency of the situation, and my artistic and intimate preoccupations at that moment. Each time, I experiment with different narrative devices and approaches tomise en scene. The decision of working with 35mm for Snow Canon imposed a more traditional work method, from writing to shooting. It was in fact a sort of preparatory film for a long-feature film project. I took great pleasure in writing it and in the preproduction but I felt a certain frustration during the shoot. There was not much room left for experimentation. But it was also the first time that I was not dealing with the cinematography, which allowed me to concentrate on the two actresses. And this was essential, it was the core of the film.
MPC: To what extent does your experience as an actress inform your work as a filmmaker, and in particular your work with actors?
MD: I work in response to a desire. Last Night, my first short film, was born from a desire to film the bodies and faces of my friends. Later, when I worked on 35 Shots of Rhum, directed by Claire Denis, I was able to live a character from within. Claire had chosen me, me and no one else. I was Josephine, that’s how simple it was. Since then I have regularly worked as an actress and it has greatly contributed to my work as a filmmaker, and in particular to the writing of my films.
MPC: And how does it affect your choice of actors? The choices of actresses in Snow Canon – neither professional – are very interesting.
MD: It’s pure intuition and pure desire. It cannot be explained. For me, everything relies on the choice of actors. From the moment that this choice is made, everything comes together naturally. The people I film are people who inspire me.
MPC: The Alps of Snow Canon don't appear to be a real place, but a fantasised mental landscape. In many ways, they are as far as one can get from the beach in Atlantiques. Could you elaborate on that, and also on your choice of a mountain landscape?
MD: Snow Canon is built upon associations and correspondences of ideas and images. I filmed the girls as a landscape in mutation, and the mountains as the interior space of the two main characters. They are distant, inaccessible and yet captivating: as unattainable as the desire and its temporality which are the subject of the film.
MPC: Is the actress who plays Vanina a sort of teenage version of yourself?
MD: Yes, Snow Canon is quite autobiographical. It is a film about the representation of the imaginary and the invention of the self during the lost hours of adolescence. As a child I could spend hours travelling in my head, making up stories, lives, characters. I used to dress up all the time. And I had a lot of babysitters!
MPC: Do you consider Snow Canon to be your own rite of passage as a filmmaker?
MD: Not this film in particular but I am very interested in the idea of passage. My more recent film, Mille Soleils is a journey in time and space. In Atlantiques, the sea journey is presented as a rite of passage: from darkness to light, from child to man. In Snow Canon we witness Vanina’s initiation to erotism and her mutation into a young woman.
Credits
Director: Mati Diop
Screenplay: Mati Diop and Judith Lou Lévy
Sound: Delphine Malaussena
Editing: Ael Dallier Vega
Production: AURORA FILMS
Cast
Vanina: Nilaya Bal
Mary Jane: Nour Mobarak
Eloïse: Chan Coic
Simon: Alban Guyon
Mati Diop
“Snow Canon”
Super 16 transferred to 35mm, color, sound, 33'
Introduced by María Palacios Cruz
Year: 2011
Snow Canon explores the development of a peculiar and intense relationship between two girls, whose lives are brought together in an outlandish set in the French Alps. The film offers brilliant insights into youth imaginary, which are disclosed throughout the suspended situation which Vanina and her au pair are living.
María Palacios Cruz: Mati Diop’s filmography is one that resists easy categorisations and geographical borders, drifting between the shores of Senegal and France. But whereas Atlantiques (2009), Big in Vietnam (2012) and Mille Soleils (2013) are tales of longing and displacement shot in a quasi-documentary style, Snow Canon (2011) is a story of teenage desire set against the backdrop of a holiday chalet in the wealthy French Alps. Compared to your other work, Snow Canon represents a departure from documentary film, as well as from a more artisanal approach to filmmaking. Were you concerned about losing the sense of immediacy of your earlier work, and how did you attempt to preserve it?
Mati Diop: Each of my films responds to a different mode of production and fabrication, which is determined by the means at my disposal, the urgency of the situation, and my artistic and intimate preoccupations at that moment. Each time, I experiment with different narrative devices and approaches tomise en scene. The decision of working with 35mm for Snow Canon imposed a more traditional work method, from writing to shooting. It was in fact a sort of preparatory film for a long-feature film project. I took great pleasure in writing it and in the preproduction but I felt a certain frustration during the shoot. There was not much room left for experimentation. But it was also the first time that I was not dealing with the cinematography, which allowed me to concentrate on the two actresses. And this was essential, it was the core of the film.
MPC: To what extent does your experience as an actress inform your work as a filmmaker, and in particular your work with actors?
MD: I work in response to a desire. Last Night, my first short film, was born from a desire to film the bodies and faces of my friends. Later, when I worked on 35 Shots of Rhum, directed by Claire Denis, I was able to live a character from within. Claire had chosen me, me and no one else. I was Josephine, that’s how simple it was. Since then I have regularly worked as an actress and it has greatly contributed to my work as a filmmaker, and in particular to the writing of my films.
MPC: And how does it affect your choice of actors? The choices of actresses in Snow Canon – neither professional – are very interesting.
MD: It’s pure intuition and pure desire. It cannot be explained. For me, everything relies on the choice of actors. From the moment that this choice is made, everything comes together naturally. The people I film are people who inspire me.
MPC: The Alps of Snow Canon don't appear to be a real place, but a fantasised mental landscape. In many ways, they are as far as one can get from the beach in Atlantiques. Could you elaborate on that, and also on your choice of a mountain landscape?
MD: Snow Canon is built upon associations and correspondences of ideas and images. I filmed the girls as a landscape in mutation, and the mountains as the interior space of the two main characters. They are distant, inaccessible and yet captivating: as unattainable as the desire and its temporality which are the subject of the film.
MPC: Is the actress who plays Vanina a sort of teenage version of yourself?
MD: Yes, Snow Canon is quite autobiographical. It is a film about the representation of the imaginary and the invention of the self during the lost hours of adolescence. As a child I could spend hours travelling in my head, making up stories, lives, characters. I used to dress up all the time. And I had a lot of babysitters!
MPC: Do you consider Snow Canon to be your own rite of passage as a filmmaker?
MD: Not this film in particular but I am very interested in the idea of passage. My more recent film, Mille Soleils is a journey in time and space. In Atlantiques, the sea journey is presented as a rite of passage: from darkness to light, from child to man. In Snow Canon we witness Vanina’s initiation to erotism and her mutation into a young woman.
Credits
Director: Mati Diop
Screenplay: Mati Diop and Judith Lou Lévy
Sound: Delphine Malaussena
Editing: Ael Dallier Vega
Production: AURORA FILMS
Cast
Vanina: Nilaya Bal
Mary Jane: Nour Mobarak
Eloïse: Chan Coic
Simon: Alban Guyon