art restitution

Dahomey documents the return to Benin of looted treasures. Colonial powers around the globe seized thousands of artifacts from the countries they conquered and then exploited. Most museums have been slow to repatriate their holdings, though each return brings joy. This is the case for the twenty-six art works recently returned by France’s Musée du Quai Branly’s to the country now known as Benin, then Dahomey. French Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop’s documentary follows the packing and delivery of these valuable treasures from the Musée du Quai Branly to their glorious reception in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city.

A past stolen from an African kingdom is restored in Dahomey, a striking, stylized documentary that shows the repatriation efforts for plundered royal artifacts and what the exhibition means to its current home. In November 2021, 26 pieces left Paris on a boat to the Republic of Benin, and this voyage is not chronicled the way you might expect an historical account to unfold. Rather, director Mati Diop takes an unusual approach, creating haunting imagery through different points of view. That these Africans were robbed of their cultural identity through colonization is Diop’s main theme. During the film, we see the excitement about the homecoming and hear from students attending the University of Abomey-Calavi on what the restitution means to them.