November, 2021. Twenty-six royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey, beautiful sculptures of ancestors, 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 how should the people of Benin reconcile these ancestors’ homecoming in a country that had to forge ahead in their absence? Mati Diop’s stunning DAHOMEY explores the legacy of colonialism through the lens of these cultural treasures, bringing the past into profound dialogue with the present.

In French with English subtitles.