See the two of the shortlisted finalists for this year’s LUX Audience Awards this season at Scandinavia House! On February 7 we’ll be screening Dahomey, Mati Diop’s riveting documentary about the 2021 repatriation of royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey to the present-day Republic of Benin.
In November 2021, 26 royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin. Along with thousands of others, these artefacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. But what attitude should the Beninese adopt to their homecoming, in a country that had to forge ahead in their absence? The debate rages among students at the University of Abomey-Calavi.
“Open-ended, fecund with imagination and ideas, never hectoring or lecturing, not so much posing questions as asking what questions might be posed: Mati Diop’s film is a marvelous provocation” (Deadline).
This event has been organized by the European Parliament in partnership with Scandinavia House.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Director Mati Diop (b. June 1982) was born in Paris. Since the early 2000s, she has built an eclectic body of work that has won awards at various international festivals. With her first feature film Atlantics (2019), winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival followed by Dahomey (2024) awarded by The Golden Bear of Berlinale, she has established herself as one of the leading auteurs of international cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema.
ABOUT THE LUX AUDIENCE AWARD
The LUX Audience Award is a joint initiative of the European Parliament and the European Film Academy in collaboration with the European Commission and Europa Cinemas. Itis the largest audience award worldwide and the only film prize in the world where citizens together with Members of the European Parliament -with each group weighting 50% -can decide who the winner will be by rating the nominated films online.
The LUX Audience Award fosters dialogue and engagement between politics and the public through the medium of film. The nominated films address European values and raise awareness about some of today’s main social and political issues such as mental health, poverty, climate change, freedom of expression, gender equality, LGBTIQ+ rights.