NYFF '24: Mati Diop tells a ghost story in “Dahomey”

by Cláudio Alves

In a territory located within present-day Benin, there once was the Kingdom of Dahomey, which prospered from the early 17th to near the dawn of the 20th century. Around the mid-1800s, the kingdom became the focus of European imperial forces after a couple centuries as a supplier of enslaved people to the Atlantic slave trade. First came the British and then the French. The Franco-Dahomean wars led to its fracturing, a colonial schism that resulted in the kingdom's annexation into French West Africa. In 1892, when European forces invaded, thousands of treasures and historical artifacts were taken from the royal palace. For decades, they have resided in French museums despite many Beninese calls for their return. By 2021, the two nations reached an agreement.

Out of the estimated 7,000 objects, 26 pieces were shipped from the Musée du quai Branly to Cotonou, in Benin. Mati Diop's Dahomey details this journey, its cultural significance and context within the decolonization process. This year's Gold Berlin Bear winner considers all of it in a swift 68 minutes, embracing documentary techniques while combining them with a touch of poetry, perchance a phantasm…

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Best International Feature: Indonesia, Senegal, Thailand

by Cláudio Alves

Tomorrow we'll know which 15 films made the Academy's shortlist in the Best International Feature Film category. In this series of capsule review trios, I've looked at 27 films whose quality spanned from shoddy propaganda to caustic masterpiece. To end in a round number, I'd like to shine a light on three films that are very unlikely to be chosen by AMPAS. Three features whose singular oddness and inspiringly weird ideas deserve to be celebrated, even though one of them can be called faultless. Join me, as I try to describe the wonders of an Indonesian horror flick with historical ambitions, a Senegalese tragedy with Shakespearean proportions, and a Thai coming-of-age tale centered on the ideologies inherent to minimalist interior design…

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"Cuties" Wants to Say Something About Young Girls Who Sexualize Themselves. But Does It?

Please welcome new contributor Ren Jender reporting from Sundance...

At first glance Cuties, the debut feature from French-Senegalese director Maïmouna Doucouré has a strong resemblance to Mati Diop's Atlantics. Like Ada, Atlantics' main character, Cuties' Amy (Fathia Youssouf) is torn between the edicts of her Senegalese parents' strict Muslim faith (an early scene shows Amy wearing a headscarf --even though she's only 11-- as she listens to the sermon on the virtues of modesty) and more hedonistic, self-centered Western ideals. The latter is personified by Angelica (Médina El Aidi-Azouni) Amy's neighbor in a Parisian apartment building. Angelica is also 11, but dresses in crop tops and tight vinyl pants or short skirts...

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9 Foreign Film Finalists for the Oscar Race

by Nathaniel R

"The Wound" from South Africa might be the biggest surprise on the finalist list.The Academy's foreign film nominating committees have whittled down the 92 contenders to 9. If you've forgotten or never heard the procedure it involves multiple volunteers watching a certain number of entries to be eliglble to vote on them. The top six films advance from those ballots and the executive committee chooses another three which makes the 9 finalists. Then a final committee watches the nine finalists and votes to determine the five nominations. We correctly predicted 7 of the 9 finalist (you can peak here though we'll be updating that chart to reflect the official standings shortly)

A Fantastic Woman directed by Sebastián Lelio for Chile
In the Fade directed by Fatih Akin for Germany
On Body and Soul Ildikó Enyedi for Hungary
Foxtrot directed by Samuel Maoz for Israel
The Insult directed by Ziad Doueiri for Lebanon
Loveless directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev for Russia
Félicité directed by Alain Gomis for Senegal
The Wound directed by John Trengove for South Africa
The Square directed by Ruben Östlund for Sweden MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

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Interview: Alain Gomis on Why Senegal's Oscar Submission 'Félicité' is a Film About the Modern World

By Jose Solís

The title heroine of Félicité is unlike any film character you’ve met. As played by Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu, she’s both larger than life and an everywoman trying to make a living as a singer in a Kinshasan bar. When her son Samo (Gaetan Claudia) has a devastating motorcycle accident, Félicité is forced to go in a race against time, as she tries to find the money to pay for his treatment. But this is only the first of Félicité’s many plights and before we know it, the film has become a soulful character study in which a woman must learn to accept love from others. If the film sounds like a social drama, it’s only because director Alain Gomis uses that familiar structure to invite us into a world that will seem new to many, but once inside he defies the conventions of genre and traditional plot to convey something more lyrical.

The film has been selected as Senegal’s official Oscar entry and is now playing in select US theaters. I spoke to Gomis during the New York Film Festival, where the film was shown, and learned about his process, and why he thinks his film is a reflection of the modern world. Read the interview after the jump...

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