Berlin 2024: ‘Dahomey’ win signals an essential year for documentary filmmaking
All eyes are on Hollywood as the pesky bite of winter turns into a springtime nibble, with the Academy dusting off the red carpet and polishing their champagne flutes to prepare for the Oscars just around the corner. Yet, as history has repeatedly taught us, if you want a nuanced reflection of the contemporary zeitgeist through cinema, you’re better off looking toward the Berlin Film Festival, which has only just closed its doors, awarding Mati Diop’s documentary Dahomey the top prize.
A remarkable study into colonialism and modern-day reparations, Diop’s short documentary, clocking in at just over one hour, explores the journey of 26 stolen treasures from Dahomey, a kingdom in West Africa that existed from around 1600 until 1904. Placing the documentary in the perspective of the plundered loot, the French-Senegalese filmmaker provides a fascinating outlook on the issue, charting how the treasures, which were being exhibited in Paris, returned to Benin, the country where Dahomey once stood.
“To restitute is to do justice,” Diop stated when collecting the Golden Bear at the festival, “We can either get rid of the past as an unpleasant burden that only hinders our evolution, or we can take the responsibility and use it as the basis for moving forward. We have to choose.” Indeed, Dahomey well reflects this friction, with cultural reparations being a key centrepoint of the documentary, assessing how it’s only possible to progress once the wrongs of the past have been untangled.
Similar political cinematic studies have proved essential in recent times, with films like Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli’s Lakota Nation vs. the United States assessing how the injustices of the past can still be addressed today. Such won’t cease in 2024 either, with the theme of reparations still very much on the mind of the contemporary subconscious.
The Sundance hit Black Box Diaries, directed by Shiori Ito, is just one such story, following the very personal sexual assault case of the filmmaker and her efforts to prosecute the offender. What starts as a mission to bring down a high-profile media figure and get justice turns into a fascinating study of Japan’s outdated judicial system that has long oppressed female voices.
In a similar march for justice is Sugarcane from filmmakers Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat, the winner of the ‘US Documentary’ award at Sundance, which unpicks a story of abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school. Specifically tackling the erasure of local culture and the search for reparation and reconciliation, Sugarcane has already enamoured documentary lovers across the world.
Having long been uplifting previously unheard voices by awarding its Golden Bear to some of independent cinema’s most curious films, Berlinale has continued its trend by showering Dahomey with praise. A film of urgent importance that speaks to the contemporary urge for political and social change, its Berlin win has, no doubt, set the standards for all like-minded documentaries to come in 2024.
