After winning the Grand Prix at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival for ‘Atlantics,’ director Mati Diop’s second feature film ‘Dahomey,’ is a documentary blending reality and fiction telling the story of 26 historical treasures from The Kingdom of Dahomey being returned to its home country after they were taken during the French colonial period. The film features narration for the artifacts, as they tell their stories of being taken and returned.
‘Dahomey’ had its world premiere at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the top prize of the Golden Bear for best film. The film was also screened at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and is scheduled to open the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Program of 72nd San Sebastian Festival.
Release Date
Directed by Mati Diop, ‘Dahomey’ opens in select US theaters on October 25, 2024.
Synopsis
In 2021, 26 objects from the Kingdom of Dahomey leave Paris and are returned to present-day Benin. How should these art treasures, stolen from ancestors, be received in a country which has reinvented itself in their absence?
“The idea came in the wake of Emmanuel Macron’s speech in 2017, when the French president suddenly announced that all African heritage would have to be returned within five years,” said Diop on the inspiration of the film in an interview with Le Monde. She continued, “The announcement of the return of works of art to Africa was like a kind of slap in the face. The slap in the face was the realization that the question of African heritage, monopolized by European museums, was something I had never thought about i. Or at least it wasn’t the first postcolonial issue that came to mind.”
Reviews
Brian Tallerico in a RogerEbert.com review praised the documentary, writing, “Diop’s film is so daring: On the surface, it’s about the physical markers of culture and history, but it’s made in such a way that we understand the items we see in museums are more than just records of something that happened long ago”
Katie Luxford in a Next Best Picture review gave the film a perfect score of 10/10, writing, “Dahomey strikes the perfect balance between reflecting on the past and embracing the future with dream-like direction and a perspective like no other.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for ‘Dahomey.’