France and Senegal / 2013 / 86mins / Drama / French, Wolof, English and Italian

Between Turin, Dakar, and New York, three destinies cross paths and echo one another, forming a constellation of exile. Twenty-four-year-old Sophie leaves Dakar to join her husband, Abdoulaye, in Turin. Meanwhile, Abdoulaye has already left for New York through a smuggler’s network and 19-year-old Thierno is traveling in Africa for the first time. Under the Starry Sky takes us on a journey through three distinct, diverse cities, underscoring the realities, hopes, and dreams of contemporary emigration.

Dyana Gaye

Dyana Gaye was born in Paris in 1975. After majoring in film studies at the University of Paris VIII in France, she won the Louis Lumière - Villa Médicis grant in 1999 for her script Une femme pour Souleymane, which she directed the following year. She was a finalist of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in 2004, and in 2005 she directed a musical one-shot sequence film, J’ai deux amours (My Two Loves), for the project Paris la métisse. In 2006, her film Ousmane (Deweneti) received numerous international distinctions, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the César Awards in 2008. In 2009, she produced Un transport en commun, a musical comedy which screened at the Locarno Film Festival in the "Cinéastes du présent" competition, and was selected among at the Sundance and Toronto International Film Festivals. It is one of the five films nominated for the 2011 César for Best Short Fillm. In 2013, she directed Des étoiles, the first feature film shot between Dakar, Turin and New York, which will premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in the Contemporary World Cinema section. The film received the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Prize at the Premiers Plans Angers Festival 2014. Dyana Gaye is a member of Collectif 50/50 which aims to promote equality between women and men and diversity in cinema and the audiovisual industry. Learn More