The violent visions of Nikyatu Jusu’s NANNY | TIFF 2022

A young Senegalese newcomer to New York is haunted by violent visions while working as a nanny and planning for the arrival of her own son, in writer-director Nikyatu Jusu’s mystical feature debut — NANNY — exploring the dangerous allure of the American Dream in the immigrant experience. For tickets, visit This striking feature debut from writer-director Nikyatu Jusu — winner of a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance ’22 — casts a spell with its oneiric character study of a Senegalese immigrant working as a nanny for an upper-class New York couple while struggling to maintain her own identity and desires. At first, Aisha (Anna Diop) is excited to start her new position looking after the sweet young daughter of type-A working mom Amy (Michelle Monaghan) and her mostly absent photographer husband, Adam (Morgan Spector). The job should provide the necessary finances to bring her own son, Lamine, to the US within a few months, but almost immediately Aisha is plunged into watery nightmares and hallucina