Dahomey
Shown as part of the Williams College French Film Festival Exile & Return in New French & Francophone Film
Join Christa Clarke, art historian of African Art and WCMA Director of Curatorial Strategy, Museum Project, and Katarzyna Pieprzak Professor of French and Comparative Literature, for a conversation and Q&A after the screening.
"A daring meditation on the painful legacy of looted artifacts. Mati Diop examines the fate of 26 treasures — sometimes from their point of view — looted from Benin in 1892." — New York Times
Thousands of royal artifacts of Dahomey, a West African kingdom, were taken by French colonists in the 19th century for collection and display in Paris. Centuries later, a fraction returned to their home in modern-day Benin. This dramatized documentary follows the journey of 26 of the treasures as told by cultural art historians, embattled university students, and one of the repatriated statues himself.
French faculty will introduce each film. All films are in French with English subtitles, and are free and open to the public, due to the generosity of the Class of 1960 Scholars Fund, the Romance Languages Department, and the Center for Global Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.DocumentaryPT1H8M2025-02-18Lucrèce Hougbelo
Parfait Vaiayinon
Didier Sedoha Nassangade
Mati Diop
Mati Diop
Judith Lou Lévy
Eve Robin
Dahomey"Dahomey"Showtimes