Tansi Makele’s latest short film ‘Novo Atlantico’ offers a moving reflection on the bonds that unite African communities around the globe. The young Paris-based director journeyed to Senegal for the Dakar Biennale late last year, where he filmed this personal project on the shores of the city. “’Novo Atlantico’ creates a symbolic bridge with Brazil, weaving together shared histories across the Atlantic,” the Franco-Congolese talent tells us. “It’s a reflection on freedom, resilience and the deep, enduring ties within the Afro-diaspora.”

In the film, we follow a lone figure enacting a simple yet graceful ritual toward Gorée Island (known for its dark role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade) and beyond. In doing, he embodies marronnage, the act of escaping slave plantations in search of liberation, and quilombo, the Brazilian term for the independent communities founded by these Afro-Brazilians as well as indigenous people and others resisting oppression. Meanwhile we hear an excerpt from the poem ‘O Navio Negreiro’ by Castro Alves, read by José Araujo, reminding us to look to oneself, and to the horizons, always.

‘Novo Atlantico’ follows Makele’s last short film ‘Camadas de Nós’ – shot in Rio de Janeiro in collaboration with C.R.E.O.L.E. and debuted on Nataal – making this a beautiful full circle in his storytelling. Drawing on his own cross-cultural heritage, and inspired by the honest and emotional filmmaking of Khalil Joseph, Terrence Malick and Spike Lee, this emerging director is creating a brilliant cinematic realm that both acts as an archive of memory and unfurls the sails of collective imagining.