Dahomey

Mati Diop’s vital new film documents an historic moment of restitution—and frames it as a resurrection. Tracing that passage back to life, Laura Staab illuminates how Dahomey uses inventive, hybrid forms to reflect on the return of African art.

Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlinale, Diop’s dynamic film brings a dazzling sense of imagination to vital issues of self-determination and restitution. Amplifying voices from beyond the walls of international museums, this spellbinding work redefines the spaces of culture and art.

It’s a wisp of a thing, clocking in at barely over an hour. But the agile poetry and formal playfulness of Mati Diop’s exquisite hybrid documentary belies the weight and wealth of ideas within. November 2021: 26 treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey, looted by the French in the late 19th century, leave the Musée du quai Branly in Paris to be returned to their homeland, now Benin in west Africa. Diop’s camera documents the whole process, from the careful packaging of these irreplaceable artefacts, to the ceremonial dancing and joyous celebration that greets their arrival in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city.

But this is more than a handsomely photographed fly-on-the-wall account of a small gesture of reparation (the 26 treasures are just a few of an estimated 7,000 purloined items). Diop, whose previous film was the Cannes Grand Prix-winning Atlantics, gives a voice to the stolen items with a lyrical text by the Haitian author Makenzy Orcel, translated into Fon, and recorded in a collage of male and female voices. Most invigorating of all is a dynamic debate among students at the University of Abomey-Calavi about the significance and meaning of the objects and their return. British Museum, take note.