Dahomey

Mati Diop’s Golden Bear-winning DAHOMEY opens with an image of dozens of tiny replica Eiffel Towers, twinkling in the Parisian night, laid out on the ground for sale. The icon of the metropole has been reduced to souvenir that, stripped of all grandeur; Diop’s assault on coloniality is already underway. DAHOMEY follows a very different set of objects: 26 artefacts looted from the titular kingdom in the 1890s, now being repatriated from France to present-day Benin. In a rhythm that is at once taut and patient, the director’s second feature chronicles this process, from the preparation of the shipment to the uncrating of the treasures, from their public display to the ensuing debates about the complexities of restitution. Diop adds a speculative, animistic element to this process in the form of an intermittent voiceover that speaks from the perspective of the artefacts, voicing experiences of plunder, exile and captivity. With poetic intensity, this other-than-human presence conveys the weight of history—a history of racialised violence that continues to unfold in the present. DAHOMEY seeks to repair these wounds, while acknowledging the difficulty, even the impossibility, of doing so. (Erika Balsom)

No tickets available for the screening and award ceremony at Gartenbaukino on October 29 at 7.30 pm.

Mati Diop: ATLANTIQUES (2009, K), SNOW CANON (2011, K), BIG IN VIETNAM (2012, K), MILLE SOLEILS (2013), LIBERIAN BOY (2015, K), ATLANTIQUE (2019), IN MY ROOM (2020, K)