“When Miu Miu proposed to me to make a film for Women’s Tales during confinement, in the midst of a health and social crisis, I thought it was a very delicate exercise but also a challenge that confronted me with essential questions about my practice as a filmmaker. What story can I tell now, with minimal means, alone in my studio, that resonates with what the world is going through while being intimate?
In fact, I had already started a home-movie, with filming my confined neighbors at night, in long focal length, from the window of the 24th floor of a tower based in the 13th district of Paris. After almost a year of promoting my feature film Atlantics all over the world, I could finally be sedentary and freely return to the essence of my relationship with cinema, to where it all began: the act of filming.
But the source of the film I was conceiving was mostly based on the discovery of audio recordings I made of my grandmother, Maji, which I was listening to for the very first time. Our conversations were recorded during the three last years before she passed away. They took place in the small living room of her apartment, in bourgeois 17th arrondissement, where she lived alone and confined for more than 20 years. Sometimes, her living room turned into a stage where my grandmother performed the story of her lived and dreamed life.
In the same way that there was only for a moment as special as a lockdown for me to explore this intimate material, IN MY ROOM is the only film that imposed itself to me at that time, that felt truly worth being made, being shared.”

Mati Diop

IN MY ROOM by Mati Diop premieres at the Venice Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori on September 6th, 2020, and will be available to stream on MUBI from midnight on September 7^th. The entire Miu Miu Women’s Tales series will be available in a dedicated section on MUBI starting September 7^th, 2020.