Oscars: Senegal Submits Mati Diop’s Golden Bear Winner ‘Dahomey’ For International Feature Film Race

Senegal has selected French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop’s Golden Bear-winning contemporary doc Dahomey as its submission for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.

Dahomey had its North American premiere at TIFF this week. The film will have its U.S. bow this weekend at the Camden International Film Festival before screening at the New York Film Festival in October.

Diop’s second feature film, Dahomey borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin. It was founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants — a three-century dynasty — the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié). 

Diop’s doc opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. But what do these ancient treasures mean in a country that has had to forge a new existence in their absence? The film’s full synopsis reads: While the soul of the artifacts is freed, debate rages among students of the University of Abomey-Calavi. 

Dahomey is Diop’s first feature since 2019’s Atlantics, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes and was distributed worldwide by Netflix. The film is also the first project from Fanta Sy, the Dakar-based production house Diop quietly launched earlier this year with her creative partner Fabacary Assymby Coly, a Senegalese industry veteran. 

“The idea is also to use my network to help the films we support be shown in festivals and distributed around the world,” Diop told us about the company during an exclusive interview in May. You can check out the full interview here. 

Eve Robin and Judith Lou Lévy were also producers on the film with Diop and Coly.