Golden Bear win for 'Dahomey' places spotlight on looted African art
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00:00 "Golden Bear" for Best Film goes to the movie "Da Homme" by Mathie Diop.
00:06 A "Golden Bear" for French Senegalese filmmaker Mathie Diop,
00:11 for her film about returning treasures looted by the West in former colonies.
00:15 It's more than cinema, it's more than making a movie, it's a political gesture.
00:20 This honors me, this honors my team, this honors the realities and people who this film
00:27 talk about. It's a light put on an injustice that needed to be shared and discussed and
00:34 now it belongs to the audience.
00:37 It's a choice in line with the festival's political roots.
00:51 "Da Homme" tells the story of France's return of 26 works of art to Benin in 2021,
00:57 looted in 1892 by French colonial troops.
01:00 Treasures from the Kingdom of Da Homme were kept at the Musée de Quai Branly in Paris.
01:06 Thousands of African works of art from the colonial era remain on display in
01:11 Europe's leading museums to this day.
01:14 We can either get rid of the past as an unpleasant burden that only hinders our evolution
01:21 or we can take the responsibility of it, using it as a basis to keep us moving forward.
01:27 "Da Homme" is only the second African film to win the Berliners' Golden Bear,
01:33 following the South African film "Carmen de Cayalicha" in 2005.