DAHOMEY Documentary

Screening to be followed by a conversation with director, writer and producer Mati Diop.

Returning to AFI FEST with her second feature and first foray into nonfiction filmmaking, French/Senegalese actor-turned-filmmaker Mati Diop (ATLANTICS, AFI FEST 2019) continues to explore the havoc wrought by colonialism, through a dreamlike, quasi-supernatural lens. Entering the pristine vaults of the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, 26 artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey have been carefully packaged for repatriation to their country of origin, present-day Benin in West Africa. Lending voice to its descendants, as well as the objects themselves (in a fantastic text written by Haitian author Makenzy Orcel), DAHOMEY is a poetic interrogation as to why the broader conversations surrounding the repatriation of cultural artifacts has largely been directed by the former colonizers themselves. Winner of the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival, DAHOMEY raises complex questions beyond simply what should be done, but how and why. –Malin Kan