Dahomey

In 2021, 26 objects from the Kingdom of Dahomey leave Paris and are returned to present-day Benin. How should these art treasures, stolen from ancestors, be received in a country which has reinvented itself in their absence? And more importantly, as director Mati Diop puts it: how should we go about ‘decolonising our imaginaries in the first place’.

A blend of documentary and reinvented debate, this important film on the restitution of artworks to former colonies was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival.