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Mati Diop Merges Fact With Fantasy In Berlin Doc ‘Dahomey’


'Atlantics' director Mati Diop explores questions of restitution through a poetic lens in Golden Bear contender 'Dahomey.'

Moving from Paris to Cotonou, the inventive documentary allows the artifacts to speak for themselves, reflecting on their journey in Fon-language dialogue often set against an ethereal and evocative synthpop score. In that way, restitution was really more of a prism through which we could ask young people about their relationship to themselves, to postcolonial issues, and to politics in the country too – to collide and contrast voices of the ancestral memorial past with this more youthful cry. [Fanta Sy co-founder] Fabacary Assymby Coly has been a close artistic collaborator since 2013, and we wanted to continue that partnership by joining forces to set up a production company in Dakar.

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