Dakar, 2009. At night, three friends gather around a fire. Recently repatriated from Spain, Serigne tells Cheikh and Alpha about his journey. He has only one plan in mind: to jump on a boat and go to sea again. His friends try to convince him to stay but Serigne, as if bewitched, seems already gone.

Fifteen years before she won the Golden Bear for Dahomey, Mati Diop began her career with an atmospheric tale of treacherous voyages and lives risked to the ocean. Flickering with the mercurial hopes of Senegalese youth, Atlantics later inspired her ghostly, acclaimed feature of the same name.