Franco-Senegalese Film Grabs Berlin's Golden Bear

The documentary, Dahomey, directed by Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, won the prestigious Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival. 

The film follows the 2021 repatriation of 26 artifacts from the Dahomey kingdom to Benin from a Paris museum, with haunting voices recounting the pillaging by the French and the subsequent repatriation. 

While acknowledging the importance of restitution, Diop highlights the limited scope of these efforts as only a fraction of the looted pieces have been returned. The film blends historical context with personal stories and creative elements, garnering praise for its powerful message and innovative storytelling.

The New York Times called the documentary "some kind of miracle, packing an extraordinary amount of information, inquiry, and wild, persuasive imagination into a slim, 68-minute runtime". Variety said Dahomey was a "striking, stirring example of the poetry that can result when the dead and the dispossessed speak to and through the living".