“The first shape I had in mind for this film was fiction,” filmmaker Mati Diop told a Berlin Film Festival presser this morning when quizzed on the structure of her inventive documentary Dahomey.
The doc — which screens in the Berlinale competition this afternoon — borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin. It was founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants — a three-century dynasty — the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié).
Diop’s film opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892.
Diop continued to say she initially turned to fiction rather than documentary when she first heard of France’s plan to return the cultural objects to Benin because she assumed the official repatriation probably wouldn’t happen for decades.
“I thought it was going to be in 20, 30 years. I didn’t know if I was going to witness this in my lifetime, so I decided to write a fiction film,” Diop said. “I could only see it in the future because my imagination was just not conditioned to be able to imagine it would be possible. You have to crash through a whole host of internal barriers if you’re going to dare to dream. To dare to demand what is really just and legitimate.”
She added: “When it was announced that 26 works of art were to be returned I seized the moment, which to me seemed incredibly important. But I hadn’t realized immediately that 26 works was not many at all considering the number of works that were stolen and needed to be returned.”
The quantity of cultural artifacts returned to Benin is one of the central topics discussed in Dahomey, with many of the students featured in a centerpiece scene arguing that handing back just 26 works of thousands still displayed in France was a clear slight by French President Emmanuel Macron.
When quizzed this morning on whether she agreed with this conclusion, Diop said: “It’s quite clear that there were way too few compared with the 7000 works held captive in these museums. These 26 works are good, but it’s not enough. And I certainly think that it is humiliating.”
However, the filmmaker, who is of French and Senegalese descent, said it is perhaps time that public discourse moves beyond exact figures and takes a more structural look at the issue.
“We’re well aware this issue needs to be addressed on different levels. There’s a political agenda certainly, but also there are other ways to respond, with artists, filmmakers, students,” she said. “We shouldn’t play down how powerful these tools we have, particularly cinematic tools, can be. They offer a way to do something important.”
Dahomey is Diop’s first feature since 2019’s Atlantics, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes and was distributed worldwide by Netflix.
Pic is produced by Eve Robin, Judith Lou Lévy, and Diop. It’s a co-production between Les Films du Bal and Diop’s Dakar-based production outfit Fanta Sy. The filmmaker launched the indie house with fellow Senegalese filmmaker Fabacary Assymby Coly. Arte France is also on board as a partner. Les Films du Losange is on international sales.
The Berlin Film Festival runs February 15-25.
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