Mati Diop’s ‘Dahomey’ Wins Golden Bear at Berlin

For the second year in a row, a documentary took the top prize at Berlin. Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” has won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The film could have technically gone to Cannes, if it wanted to, but the decision to premiere it at the Berlinale has turned into a fruitful one.

Diop’s docu-fiction essay explored the return, in November 2021, of plundered royal treasures of the African Kingdom of Dahomey from Paris to the present-day Republic of Benin. The film tackles the long-awaited return of these royal treasures of Abomey, snatched away by colonials, to a country that has had to build itself back up and come to terms with their absence.

There was also a socio-political blending in Diop’s 2019 Cannes-winning “Atlantics,” a bewitching film from the French-Senegalese writer-director. However, she also delved into the supernatural in that film, and I don’t believe Dahomey is anything like that.

While taking the stage to accept her award, Diop decided to make a political statement, by shouting, “I stand with Palestine!”

The political statements continued when the jury gave a special documentary prize to “No Other Land,” which tackled the Palestinian and Israeli conflict in Masafer Yatta. The film was directed by a Israeli/Palestinian duo of Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal.

This year’s jury was presided by Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o, who announced the Golden Bear winner from the stage. Nyong’o is the first Black person to chair the Berlinale jury.

Hong Sangsoo, who won three consecutive Silver Bears in 2020 (“The Woman Who Ran”), 2021 (“Introduction”) and 2022 (“The Novelist’s Film”) — won the same exact prize again, his fourth, for “A Traveller’s Needs,” starring Isabelle Huppert. Will he ever win the Golden Bear?

Best Director went to Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias for Pepe, another docu-fiction mix about a hippo brought to Colombia by drug king Pablo Escobar. Bruno Dumont’s “L’Empire” took the Silver Bear jury prize. Sebastian Stan also won the Silver Bear for best leading performance for his role in Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man.”