dahomey – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

DAHOMEY – Essay by Yael Friedman (Guest Post)

January 24, 2025May 6, 2025 Guest Post art restitution, benin, dahomey, documentary, guest pst, international oscars, Malkenzy Orcel, mati diop, mubi, Wally Badarou, Yael Friedman

Dahomey, the new beautiful documentary from director Mati Diop, addresses the forces that wrested history from its original owners, and interrogates what it means to try and recompense for the past. The film plays witness to an unprecedented moment – the return by France of 26 objects (26 out of many thousands) to Benin – the once Kingdom of Dahomey (1600-1904). It is the first such return of the cultural heritage colonial powers plucked from their African vassal states. The Europeans carved up a continent and removed its sacred objects (among other sins), sending them across the Atlantic to sit in sterile vitrines in grand galleries, tourists strolling by once-mighty gods.

News

International Oscar Race: Vulnerable Women Abound, Female Directors Do Not – Jennifer Green reports

December 18, 2024December 21, 2024 Jennifer Green ampas, Armand, dahomey, Emilia Perez, Flow, From Ground Zero, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, i'm still here, INTERNATIONAL OSCARS 2025, oscars, santosh, The Girl with the Needle, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Universal Language, Vermiglio

“Being a woman is beautiful,” says one of the elderly narrators of Costa Rica’s entry for the International Oscar, Memories of a Burning Body. “But there’s also an ugly side to it: you’re always vulnerable.” Judging by this year’s leading contenders for the International Oscar, the feeling is global. Countries around the world submitted female-centered stories for the global Oscar category this year, with women protagonists finding themselves in disadvantaged situations but also often discovering their own strength against all manner of obstacles.

Some of these films made the shortlist for the award, announced Tuesday, Dec. 17, such as Brazil’s I’m Still Here, France’s Emilia Pérez, Germany’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Palestine’s From Ground Zero and the UK’s Santosh. Many did not, including Burning Body.

Reviews

DAHOMEY – Review by Jennifer Green

December 18, 2024December 19, 2024 Jennifer Green art restitution, benin, dahomey, documentary, international oscars, Malkenzy Orcel, mati diop, mubi, Wally Badarou

French-Senegalese director Mati Diop (Atlantics) has created a thoughtful and symbolic one-hour documentary about the 2021 return to present-day Benin of a small portion of the royal treasures plundered by invading French troops in 1892 from the then-Kingdom of Dahomey. They represent gods and thrones, kings and kingdoms, memorials to the dead. Even so, in the film’s most meaningful and stimulating sequences, a town hall of college students debates the meaning of their repatriation and the legacy of colonialism in their own lives. Diop places a camera inside a wooden box transporting one of the artifacts “home” from France, and we are sent on the journey with it. But what does “home” even mean to one who doesn’t remember their place of origin? That’s a question asked by the statue inside the box, originally referred to only as “number 26.”

Reviews

DAHOMEY – Review by Diane Carson

November 20, 2024November 24, 2024 Diane Carson art restitution, benin, dahomey, documentary, Malkenzy Orcel, mati diop, mubi, Wally Badarou

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.

Reviews

DAHOMEY – Review by Lynn Venhaus

October 19, 2024December 19, 2024 Lynn Venhaus art restitution, benin, dahomey, documentary, Malkenzy Orcel, mati diop, mubi, Wally Badarou

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.

Festivals

New York Film Festival 62 (NYFF 2024) Wrap Up – Margaret Barton-Fumo Reports

October 16, 2024October 16, 2024 Margaret Barton-Fumo All We Imagine As Light, Anora, April, dahomey, fernanda torres, Hard Truths, mati diop, Neo Sora, New York Film Festival, NYFF 2024, Payal Kapadia, Petra Costa, Transamazonia, Yeo Siew Hua

This year’s New York Film Festival boasted an impressive roster of features, with an array of talented women both behind and in front of the camera. The coveted Main Slate was stacked, with eight films directed by women and nearly as many women-centric titles directed by men. Several women directors went out on a limb, performing bold experimentations in style and genre. It is difficult to establish a theme within such a varied international festival, but in general I was taken with several women’s performances in male-directed films and by the bold choices made by many of the women directors. In either case, women are occupying center stage in a still male-dominated festival, in which the majority of the films are directed by men. It’s a promising step forward, to see so many inspiring women both in front of and behind the scenes, and one can only hope that next year will bring even more to the forefront.