It’s been a long journey for “26,” but he’s finally home. Experience the voyage of 26 and other objets d’art in Dahomey as they return home to Africa during a repatriation process with the French government. Dahomey, now streaming on MUBI, is Mati Diop’s provocative consideration of the lingering consequences of colonialism. (And one of POV’s picks for the best docs of 2024.)
The film observes as 26 artworks that were stolen from the Kingdom of Dahomey during the French invasion of 1892 and displayed in French museums are returned to their rightful owners. Now that these 26 artworks—just a few pieces from the thousands that were stolen—are going home, though, Diop considers what it truly means to repair such cultural divides.
26, a statue made in tribute to King Ghézo who ruled the Kingdom of Dahomey from 1818 to 1859, narrates the journey home. Diop offers a poetic mix of cinéma vérité and speculative documentary as the statue invites the viewer to consider what it really means to ease the soul of a nation.
As Diop’s camera sees the statue carefully packed up in a crate, shipped home, and put on display in Benin (contemporary Dahomey), 26 asks if the restitution process is complete. The film, which won the Golden Bear at Berlin earlier this year “is an enigmatic consideration of the ghosts of colonialism that haunt the present. The provocative doc explores the journey home for these objects and the greater debates that await their homecoming,” POV noted in our review at TIFF.
Dahomey invites further conversations as 26’s journey comes to a close. This includes a lively debate among the students of Benin as they confront the generational trauma of colonialism and ask what it truly means for a country to heal–but also consider if celebrating art is really the way to move forward. “I realized that I never heard African youth talk about this, and it seemed like they were really not considered in the conversation,” Diop told POV during an interview earlier this year. “It’s a portrait of a historical moment, a portrait of this group of students, a portrait that is both very subjective, but also one that manages to provide restitution in a sense of spirit and state of mind…I wanted this portrait to feel like a work-in-progress conversation that would lead to a global debate.”
Dahomey is now streaming on MUBI.
