The Arab Spring events of 2011 got filmmaker Mati Diop thinking: What if that search for a better life were told from the viewpoint of a teenage girl in Senegal who stayed behind as her sweetheart crossed the seas in search of new opportunity?

“We could say the film is following the ‘spring’ of a young woman in terms of the season from… dark to light, and it’s like an openness blooming,” said Diop.