In 1892, French colonial troops plundered thousands of cultural artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey. In 2021, 26 of them returned to the Republic of Benin. Their journey is narrated by the statue of King Ghezo in an oneiric, lyrical monologue. While these traditional treasures are initially received with reverential pomp and circumstance, students at the University of Abomey-Calavi vigorously debate the political motivations of the restitution while discussing ongoing issues of self-determination, education, and recovering their culture’s stolen soul.
Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, Mati Diop’s first feature since her 2019 debut Atlantics is one of the year’s most innovative and profound documentaries. Infusing its historical and cultural subjects with a dreamlike atmosphere and blending reality with the fantastical, Dahomey is transformed by the interplay between the metaphysical perspective of the stolen artifacts and the incendiary insights of the students’ debate, providing a poetic scaffolding for the film to envision a new postcolonial horizon.
Golden Bear for Best Film, Berlin 2024
Gildas Adannou, Habib Ahandessi, Joséa Guedje
France/Senegal/Benin
2024
In French, Fon and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Christiane Chabi Kao
Producer
Eve Robin, Judith Lou Lévy, Mati Diop
Screenwriter
Mati Diop
Cinematography
Josephine Drouin Viallard
Editor
Gabriel Gonzalez
Original Music
Wally Badarou, Dean Blunt
Mati Diop
Mati Diop, born in Paris in 1982, has garnered acclaim for her eclectic body of work since the early 2000s. Her feature film Atlantics (2019), which won the Grand Prix at Cannes, established her as a leading figure in international arthouse cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema. Raised in a Franco-Senegalese family with a musician father and a photographer and art buyer mother, Diop’s films, including Atlantiques (2009) and Mille Soleils (2013), explore themes of migration, colonialism, and African identity. Her second feature, Dahomey (2024), continues her focus on artistic activism in Africa.
Filmography: Atlantique (2019)
Photo by Henry Roy
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
Seeds
Shot over nine years, Brittany Shyne’s Sundance-winning documentary is a tender portrait of Black farming families in the American South. A moving meditation on land, legacy, and the strength it takes to hold on.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and Special Jury Prize Winner, Sundance, 2025, this exposé shot by a Russian primary teacher shows how the Putin propaganda machine works to militarize children.
Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story
Harlem-based photographer, freedom fighter and activist Kwame Brathwaite took 500,000 photos across his 70-year career, always devoted to celebrating the joy and beauty of African American life. Brathwaite pioneered the idea that Black is Beautiful.
Cutting Through Rocks
Winner of Sundance's World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, Cutting Through Rocks follows Sara Shahverdi — motorcyclist, midwife, and first-ever councilwoman elected in her Iranian village. A vérité triumph by Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni.
A Poet
When embittered poet Oscar Restrepo takes a job at a local high school, he meets Yurlady, a talented student from a poor background. Seeking to help her cultivate her art, he draws her into the poetry world — to disastrous and comedic results.