“Dahomey,” the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film helmed by French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, has been sold to a raft of international territories by Les Films du Losange.
Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (Pt Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.
“Dahomey” was previously acquired by Mubi for North America, Latin America, U.K., Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, India and Turkey. Les Films du Losange is currently negotiating more international sales deals and will distribute the film in theaters in France.
Weaving fantasy and documentary, “Dahomey” explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious...
Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (Pt Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.
“Dahomey” was previously acquired by Mubi for North America, Latin America, U.K., Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, India and Turkey. Les Films du Losange is currently negotiating more international sales deals and will distribute the film in theaters in France.
Weaving fantasy and documentary, “Dahomey” explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious...
- 3/26/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
In 1953, Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, and Ghislain Cloquet produced Statues Also Die, one of the fiercest and most lucid indictments of white imperialism ever captured on film. Commissioned by the magazine Présence Africaine, it sought to dissect Western attitudes toward African art. The 30-minute short did not begin as an anti-colonial project but became one along the way, informed by the belittling treatment that antiquities from the continent had received across French cultural institutions since their plundering under colonial rule. Why, for a start, was African art routinely confined at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris––an ethnographic museum––while Greek or Assyrian pieces found their place at the Louvre? An arresting montage of statues and their visitors swelled into a much larger critique of the systematic oppression of Black culture and Black bodies, with a third act considering the exploitation of Black athletes and musicians in the States.
- 2/26/2024
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
Mubi has bought “Dahomey,” a highlight of this year’s Berlinale competition and directed by Cannes prizewinner Mati Diop (“Atlantics”), for North America, Latin America, U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and India.
The feature film is represented in international markets by Films du Losange, which negotiated the deal with Mubi. “Dahomey” marks the sophomore outing of Diop, a French-Senegalese talent who is considered one of the leading figures in international arthouse cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema. Her feature debut, “Atlantics,” won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 2019, and went to win the Nation Board of Review Award, as well as nominations for a Critics Choice Award and Director’s Guild Award.
In “Dahomey,” Diop explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious artworks restituted to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin after being plundered, along with thousands of others,...
The feature film is represented in international markets by Films du Losange, which negotiated the deal with Mubi. “Dahomey” marks the sophomore outing of Diop, a French-Senegalese talent who is considered one of the leading figures in international arthouse cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema. Her feature debut, “Atlantics,” won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 2019, and went to win the Nation Board of Review Award, as well as nominations for a Critics Choice Award and Director’s Guild Award.
In “Dahomey,” Diop explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious artworks restituted to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin after being plundered, along with thousands of others,...
- 2/23/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy and Alex Ritman
- Variety Film + TV
With her mesmerizing 2019 debut feature, the lyrical Senegalese ghost story Atlantics, as well as the nonfiction project that preceded it, A Thousand Suns, Mati Diop jumped to the forefront of diasporic Black European directors reclaiming their ancestral African roots. The director’s own path as a cultural revenant continues to be inextricably woven through her work, alongside a contemplative consideration of repatriation and reparations, in her multifaceted medium-length docu-fictional essay Dahomey.
The film is both a response to Alain Resnais and Chris Marker’s 1953 inquiry into African art and colonialism, Statues Also Die, and an ongoing debate on the significance of returned artifacts and the responsibility of new generations to continue the vital work of conservation and cultural reclamation.
Running just over an hour but loaded with thematic weight and aesthetic beauty, Dahomey sprang from the French government’s return, in 2021, of 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey to...
The film is both a response to Alain Resnais and Chris Marker’s 1953 inquiry into African art and colonialism, Statues Also Die, and an ongoing debate on the significance of returned artifacts and the responsibility of new generations to continue the vital work of conservation and cultural reclamation.
Running just over an hour but loaded with thematic weight and aesthetic beauty, Dahomey sprang from the French government’s return, in 2021, of 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey to...
- 2/18/2024
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Launching in competition in Berlin, Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” traces the path of 26 royal treasures purloined by French soldiers in 1892 and restituted to the country of Benin in 2021. 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.
Variety spoke with filmmaker ahead of her film’s world premiere.
You’ve described the project as a ‘fantasy documentary.’ What does the term mean to you?
“Documentary” wouldn’t be enough, “fiction” wouldn’t be quite right either, and I needed a term that captured the hybrid nature. I also liked this almost playful way of reconciling two cinematic imaginations that we don’t often associate with one another. This fantasy element does not stem from giving the statues a voice and allowing them to tell their own story – from an African point of view,...
Variety spoke with filmmaker ahead of her film’s world premiere.
You’ve described the project as a ‘fantasy documentary.’ What does the term mean to you?
“Documentary” wouldn’t be enough, “fiction” wouldn’t be quite right either, and I needed a term that captured the hybrid nature. I also liked this almost playful way of reconciling two cinematic imaginations that we don’t often associate with one another. This fantasy element does not stem from giving the statues a voice and allowing them to tell their own story – from an African point of view,...
- 2/18/2024
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Propelled by a blistering reggae and dancehall soundtrack produced by Sly & Robbie, this shot-on-video Jamaican import is a routine genre item most notable for lead Paul Campbell's sometimes-riveting performance as a hardhearted "Third World Cop" facing off with gunrunning bad guys in Kingston.
The Palm Pictures release opened Friday in New York and looks to be a tough sell across the board. While the music and Jamaican setting will attract a few urban hipsters, the subtitling of many scenes because of the actors' thick accents and use of slang effectively makes "Third World Cop" a foreign film, but one with little to recommend it to curious cineastes.
Making his feature debut, director and co-screenwriter Chris Browne is the nephew of Perry Henzell, director of the 1971 hit "The Harder They Come" starring Jimmy Cliff. Many of the "Third World" production crew and cast also were involved with the 1997 Jamaican film "Dancehall Queen".
A crime-stopping crusader who gets the job done with bullets and brains, Capone (Campbell) in the film's opening sequence makes love with a lady friend and then makes war on some bad guys in a messy shootout. His boss, citing his "effective but not always right" methods, reassigns him to his hometown of Kingston, where there's apparently a need for him to police a notorious slum.
In a new department, where his reputation is immediately questioned by another lives-to-kill-the-bad-guys roughneck dubbed Not Nice (Lenford Salmon), Capone gets an amiable partner (Winston Bell) who is more cautious, and the movie appears headed into "Lethal Weapon" territory. But director Chris Browne and co-writers Suzanne Fenn and Chris Salewicz only flirt with that angle and opt instead for a John Woo-like scenario, with Capone forced to confront childhood friend Ratty (Mark Danvers) about his involvement with the local godfather Oney (Carl Bradshaw).
"Third World Cop" never comes together in a compelling way and finally resorts to many cop-movie cliches for a predictably bloody windup.
THIRD WORLD COP
Palm Pictures in association with Hawk's Nest Prods.
Director: Chris Browne
Screenwriters: Suzanne Fenn, Chris Browne, Chris Salewicz
Producer: Carolyn Pfeiffer Bradshaw
Executive producers: Chris Blackwell, Dan Genetti
Director of photography: Richard Lannaman
Production designer: Richard Lannaman
Editor: Suzanne Fenn
Costume designer: Michelle Haynes
Music: Wally Badarou, Sly & Robbie
Casting: Sheila Lowe Graham, Suzanne Fenn, Sharon Burke
Color/stereo
Cast:
Capone: Paul Campbell
Ratty: Mark Danvers
Oney: Carl Bradshaw
Rita: Audrey Reid
Floyd: Winston Bell
Not Nice: Lenford Salmon
Deportee: Desmond Ballentine (a k a Ninjaman)
Running time -- 98 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
The Palm Pictures release opened Friday in New York and looks to be a tough sell across the board. While the music and Jamaican setting will attract a few urban hipsters, the subtitling of many scenes because of the actors' thick accents and use of slang effectively makes "Third World Cop" a foreign film, but one with little to recommend it to curious cineastes.
Making his feature debut, director and co-screenwriter Chris Browne is the nephew of Perry Henzell, director of the 1971 hit "The Harder They Come" starring Jimmy Cliff. Many of the "Third World" production crew and cast also were involved with the 1997 Jamaican film "Dancehall Queen".
A crime-stopping crusader who gets the job done with bullets and brains, Capone (Campbell) in the film's opening sequence makes love with a lady friend and then makes war on some bad guys in a messy shootout. His boss, citing his "effective but not always right" methods, reassigns him to his hometown of Kingston, where there's apparently a need for him to police a notorious slum.
In a new department, where his reputation is immediately questioned by another lives-to-kill-the-bad-guys roughneck dubbed Not Nice (Lenford Salmon), Capone gets an amiable partner (Winston Bell) who is more cautious, and the movie appears headed into "Lethal Weapon" territory. But director Chris Browne and co-writers Suzanne Fenn and Chris Salewicz only flirt with that angle and opt instead for a John Woo-like scenario, with Capone forced to confront childhood friend Ratty (Mark Danvers) about his involvement with the local godfather Oney (Carl Bradshaw).
"Third World Cop" never comes together in a compelling way and finally resorts to many cop-movie cliches for a predictably bloody windup.
THIRD WORLD COP
Palm Pictures in association with Hawk's Nest Prods.
Director: Chris Browne
Screenwriters: Suzanne Fenn, Chris Browne, Chris Salewicz
Producer: Carolyn Pfeiffer Bradshaw
Executive producers: Chris Blackwell, Dan Genetti
Director of photography: Richard Lannaman
Production designer: Richard Lannaman
Editor: Suzanne Fenn
Costume designer: Michelle Haynes
Music: Wally Badarou, Sly & Robbie
Casting: Sheila Lowe Graham, Suzanne Fenn, Sharon Burke
Color/stereo
Cast:
Capone: Paul Campbell
Ratty: Mark Danvers
Oney: Carl Bradshaw
Rita: Audrey Reid
Floyd: Winston Bell
Not Nice: Lenford Salmon
Deportee: Desmond Ballentine (a k a Ninjaman)
Running time -- 98 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 4/19/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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