2024-02-25 00:02:10
Berlin (AFP) – The Berlin Film Festival on Saturday crowned French-Senegalese director Mati Diop (41 years old) with the Golden Bear Award, for a documentary film dealing with the recovery of works of art looted by former colonial powers in Africa.
Published on: 02/25/2024 – 01:02
4 minutes
By rewarding a film that directly addresses the post-colonial era, the jury headed by Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o, the first black person to hold this important responsibility, maintained the festival’s approach known for its interest in political issues.
Mati Diop said when accepting her award, “We can either forget the past, that annoying burden that prevents us from developing, or we can bear responsibility for it and use it to move forward,” after quoting a quote by the Martinican thinker Aime Césaire.
She added, “As a French-Senegalese filmmaker of African descent, I choose to be one of those who refuse to forget, who reject amnesia as a means.”
The film “Dahomey” narrates Benin’s recovery of 26 works of art that had been looted by French colonial forces in the late nineteenth century, in November 2021. This step was part of a movement that began during the past five years on the part of former Western powers, including France, Germany, and Belgium.
Mati Diop, who was born and raised in Paris to a father, the Senegalese composer Wasis Diop, and a mother who also works in the field of art, won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 for the film “Atlantique”, which is the highest award after the Palme d’Or.
The director told AFP that she wants her film to be seen “in the largest number of African countries” and “in schools and universities.”
This is the second African film to win the Golden Bear (after the South African film “U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha” by Mark Durnford-May in 2005).
Mati Diop succeeds Frenchman Nicolas Philiber, who won the Golden Bear last year.
Mati Diop also adds her name to a group of French female directors who have won major cinema awards in recent years: Julia Ducournau (Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2021), Audrey Diop (Golden Lion in Venice in the same year), Alice Diop (two awards in Venice in 2021). 2022) And of course Justine Trier, who dominated Friday at the César Awards after winning the Palme d’Or last year at Cannes, and whose film “Anatomy Don Shot” (“Anatomy of a Fall”) is a strong contender for the Oscars.
Female guests in red dresses before the closing party of the 74th Berlin Film Festival on February 24, 2024 © Tobias Schwarz / AFP
– From Paris to Cotonou –
To tell the story of 26 works looted by French colonial forces in 1892 in the Kingdom of Dahomey, in the south-central part of present-day Benin, which then consisted of several kingdoms, Mati Diop gave voice-overs of the events of the work for a statue of King Guizo.
In the Benin language, the “Fon,” King Guizot complains in the work that he no longer has a name, but only the number “26,” in the archives of the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.
In the documentary, the narrator describes his uprooting from his land, his life in exile, and then finally being returned to his homeland to be displayed in a museum in Cotonou, the capital of Benin.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his Beninese counterpart Patrice Talon, who are behind the return operation that was completed on November 10, 2021, do not appear in the film.
The director stresses that the return process was limited to these 26 works alone, “compared to seven thousand works still held in the Quai Branly Museum” in Paris.
The jury of the 74th Berlin Film Festival also awarded Romanian-American actor Sebastian Stan (for the film “A Different Man”) the award for best acting performance.
The Grand Jury Prize was also awarded to one of the festival’s leading figures, South Korean director Hong Sang-soo, for a film with Isabelle Hubert (“A Traveller’s Needs”), and the Jury Prize was awarded to “L’Empire”, directed by Bruno Dumont (released on Wednesday in French cinemas).
Earlier on Saturday, Amnesty International, with its German branch, awarded its Berlin Film Festival award to a Jordanian drama that deals with the refugee issue, entitled “The Stranger’s Case,” describing it as “an impressive film that deals with the refugee issue.” An epic story of escape from Syria.
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