Dahomey – Film Screening with Q&A

How does the spirit of a culture survive when its tangible body has been stolen? During History Month, the theme Body & Spirit takes centre stage in a way that is both poetic and urgent, with a screening of Dahomey. Mati Diop’s award-winning documentary (Golden Bear, Berlinale 2024) follows the return of 26 royal treasures from Paris to Benin. But in Dahomey, these artefacts are not dead matter; they possess an active spirit. In the film, Mati Diop gives a voice to statue number 26. In a dark, enchanting voice-over, the inner monologue of the royal sculpture can be heard. The object describes how its physical form, its material body, was locked away in French museum depots for more than a century, cut off from its spiritual context.

Although the physical objects are now returning, this immediately raises a deeper question about the spirit of the people: how do you heal the psychological wounds of generations who grew up without their own history? In the film, a passionate debate unfolds among students in Benin. Is the physical return of just 26 of the thousands of stolen treasures genuine healing, or merely a symbolic sticking plaster over a deep colonial wound?

Dahomey shows that heritage is not merely decoration, but the bearer of a collective psyche. A film in which the body travels, the spirit speaks and the past refuses to remain silent.

After the film, under the guidance of Philip Oronsaye, the conversation continues with special guests, exploring colonial trauma, the soul of art and the relevance of restitution in the Netherlands. This extraordinary film experience is not to be missed!

Babah Tarawally (1972, Sierra Leone) is a writer, columnist for Trouw and speaker/trainer. He fled the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s and wrote his debut novel De god met de blauwe ogen (2010) during his asylum procedure, later followed by, among others, Gevangen in zwart-wit denken (2018) and De getemde man (2023). Drawing on the Ubuntu philosophy (“I am because we are”), he writes and speaks about identity, connection and humanity. In 2023, he was named Person of the Year by the Sierra Leonean community in the Netherlands.

Amba-Henna Charry was born in Suriname and raised in Amsterdam. She is an author, awareness and identity coach, trainer, mindfulness coach and poet/performer. Her coaching focuses primarily on women within the African diaspora. As a descendant of enslaved people, she writes and speaks about her Surinamese history and the history of slavery.

Angellissa Wong-A-Soy works on the themes of the history of slavery, colonialism and its lasting effects. As a certified Body Language Master and training actor, she developed NDLIS’s training programmes in non-verbal communication, body language and micro-expressions.