{"id":3390850,"date":"2025-04-08T20:31:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T20:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/?post_type=app_event&p=3390850"},"modified":"2025-04-10T15:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T15:10:10","slug":"screenings-of-dahomey-with-director-mati-diop","status":"publish","type":"app_event","link":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/events\/screenings-of-dahomey-with-director-mati-diop\/","title":{"rendered":"Screenings of Dahomey with Director Mati Diop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Join Emory and Duke Universities for a series of screenings of the 2024 multi-awarded film Dahomey<\/em>, from renowned French filmmaker Mati Diop.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These screenings are part of Mati Diop’s tour in US universities, including Columbia, Harvard, Pratt Institute, Emory and Duke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SYNOPSIS: <\/strong>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\u2014now within the Republic of Benin\u2014acclaimed filmmaker Mati Diop documents their voyage back. As with her layered, supernaturally tinged Atlantics<\/em>, 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\u2014most strikingly\u2014those 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\u2019s University of Abomey-Calavi about what should be done with the objects, Dahomey<\/em> brilliantly negotiates a lost past and an unsure present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n