Dahomey

November, 2021. Twenty-six royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. But what attitude to adopt to these ancestors’ homecoming in a country that had to forge ahead in their absence? While the soul of the artifacts is freed, we witness a raging debate among university students, with myriad different opinions and ambiguous points of view. Diop’s film is a delightful exercise in mixing reality with creativity, as much as it is important in presenting how the colonial past still influences the present, and how complicated and multilayered that heritage is.