The first film directed by a Black woman to screen in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, director Mati Diop’s achingly romantic ghost story went on to receive the 2019 festival’s Grand Prix and stands as one of the great debut features of the 21st century.

After a group of unpaid construction workers from Senegal disappears at sea while in search of a better life abroad, the women they have left behind in Dakar are overwhelmed with a mysterious fever. Ada, 17, secretly grieves for her beloved Souleiman, one of the departed workers, but she has been promised to another man. After a fire breaks out on her wedding night, a young policeman is sent to investigate the crime, not knowing that the aggrieved workers have come back as haunting, possessive spirits. While many of these spirits seek vengeance for their unpaid labor, Souleiman has come back for a different purpose—to be with his Ada one last time.