For centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey, within the borders of modern-day Benin, was a central cultural meeting point in West Africa, a site of European colonial conquest and the transatlantic slave trade. In 1892, the French invaded and looted hundreds of treasures from the royal palace, alongside thousands of other works. Following years of appeals and reports, in 2021 an agreement was made for several of these artworks to be returned from France to Benin.
French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop (ATLANTICS), whose spectral, category-defying cinema has frequently focused on identity and exile, was granted access to the multipartite process. Tracing the historic repatriation of 26 royal treasures from the Musée du quai Branly in Paris — through their crating, overseas shipping to Cotonou, condition assessment, and eventual unveiling — Diop reveals not only the material and logistical process with elegance and precision, but also summons the ghosts of displacement. Carried by the surreal, disembodied voice and restless spirit of a bronze itself (speaking in Fon) — as well as evocative music by Dean Blunt and Wally Badarou — the film is at once lean and expansive, trimmed of any extraneous elements while provocatively gesturing towards unresolved histories of colonial expansion and exploitation (with which museums the world over are rife). As a galvanizing gathering of young, cross-disciplinary Beninese students and teachers at the Université d’Abomey-Calavi fervently debate the arrival of the treasures, their impassioned arguments and ideas echo the film’s timely, political reckoning. (Synopsis from the Toronto International Film Festival)
“There is some kind of communion with the past going on…. DAHOMEY is a striking, stirring example of the poetry that can result when the dead and the dispossessed speak to and through the living.” —Jessica Kiang, Variety “Progress is not as simple as getting our things returned to us, it’s also about recognizing and refusing to excuse cultural violence that seeks to erase history and craft society in the image of oppressors. Diop uses DAHOMEY as a form of cinematic activism, using the medium to force us to look closely at the past to craft a better future for oppressed people everywhere.” —Jourdain Searles, rogerebert.com “A rich and absorbing exploration of the specter of colonialism that continues the enthralling, otherworldly quality of her 2019 breakthrough film, ATLANTICS… At only 68 minutes, DAHOMEY brims with plenty of perspectives on what the restitution of these ancient treasures symbolizes and the dicey political implications around it.” —Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times
