Screenings of Dahomey with Director Mati Diop

Join Emory and Duke Universities for a series of screenings of the 2024 multi-awarded film Dahomey, from renowned French filmmaker Mati Diop.

These screenings are part of Mati Diop’s tour in US universities, including Columbia, Harvard, Pratt Institute, Emory and Duke.

SYNOPSIS: The African kingdom of Dahomey, which ruled over its region at the west of the continent until the turn of the 20th century, saw hundreds of its splendid royal artifacts plundered by French colonial troops in its waning days. Now, as 26 of these treasures are set to return to their homeland—now within the Republic of Benin—acclaimed filmmaker Mati Diop documents their voyage back. As with her layered, supernaturally tinged Atlantics, Diop takes a singular approach to contemporary questions around belonging in our postcolonial world, transforming this rich subject matter into a multifaceted examination of ownership and exhibition, and employing multiple points of view, including—most strikingly—those of the artifacts themselves as they sail in darkness over the ocean to their rightful home. Alternating images of nocturnal melancholy and debates among students at Benin’s University of Abomey-Calavi about what should be done with the objects, Dahomey brilliantly negotiates a lost past and an unsure present. 

• April 15 | 7pm | Emory University | White Hall 208

Followed by talk back with undergraduate students from Emory and the Atlanta University Center Consortium at 8pm hosted by Mati Diop. Discussion with the audience afterwards. More info

• April 22 | 7pm | Duke University | Rubenstein Arts Center Film Theater

Discussion to follow with the film’s director, Mati Diop, in conversation with Prof. Felwine Sarr (Romance Studies) and Prof. Anne-Gaëlle Saliot (Romance Studies). More info

Dahomey (Mati Diop, 2024, 67 min, France/Senegal/Benin, French w/ English subtitles)

Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival

Mati Diop lives and works between Paris and Dakar. Her first feature Atlantics (2019) was selected in the official Competition at the Festival de Cannes, where it was awarded the Grand Prix. The film was later shortlisted as one of the 10 best international films at the Oscars.

She has also directed several short-films and medium-length films: Atlantics (2009), Snow Canon (2011), Big in Vietnam (2012), A Thousand Suns (2013), and In My Room (2020), which were also nominated and awarded in many international festivals. In 2016, Mati Diop received the Lincoln Center of New York’s Martin E. Segal – Emerging Artist Award. As an actress, Mati Diop has appeared in 35 Shots of Rum (2008) directed by Claire Denis, Simon Killer (2012) by Antonio Campos, Fort Buchanan (2014) by Benjamin Crotty, Hermia & Helena (2016) by Matias Piñeiro and In My Room, her latest short film.