The filmmaker who tonight has won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale is a Black woman whose Senegalese father shaped her work as a director as she has consistently explored the heavy legacy of colonialism. The festival jury president presenting the prize, the actress Lupita Nyong’o, is a Black woman whose Kenyan ancestry has leveraged Hollywood success to advocate for African culture. While that parallel helps explain why the Best Film prize at the 74th Berlinale went to Mati Diop’s second feature, Dahomey, the core argument endorsing the jury’s decision rests on the difficulty of finding other titles that matched its merit among the competitors. That said, one might ask whether Diop would have had a real chance at such triumph if the festival’s competitive lineup had demonstrated stronger artistic quality in that edition.
Dahomey, running 68 minutes, follows the process that began in November 2021 with the repatriation of 26 artworks from the Dahomey kingdom, now Benin, that were stolen by the French a century and a half earlier. As it blends a documentary backbone with elements of ghost cinema, the film presents compelling arguments about Europe’s abuses in Africa and the need to restitute cultural patrimony to the countries of origin. It also serves as a pointed critique of museums as spaces that celebrate colonial legacies while underscoring their educational value and their role in cultural memory. The achievement here is undeniable in subject matter and resources, even if some viewers feel the work does not reach a level of exceptional complexity or ambition in handling those resources.
On the surface, it should not be surprising that the Jury Grand Prix — traditionally the festival’s second most prestigious award — went to Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveller’s Needs. The Korean director has maintained a long affinity with the festival, participating seven times, with five appearances in the last four years and already collecting a Grand Prix earlier plus two Best Director prizes. Yet it feels striking that such a prize would go to a work widely regarded as one of the least notable in his career. When stepping onto the stage to accept the award, Hong himself remarked, I do not know what you saw in my film.
A similar irony colors the Jury Prize awarded to Bruno Dumont’s L’empire, a comedy that wades through the extraordinary space clash between two powerful beings who choose the coast of Normandy to settle the fate of the universe. The film functions as a deliberate rebuttal to the often earnest, transcendent cinema that tends to win top festival honors, and it pays homage to the early phase of Dumont’s career when he pursued a more controversial, provocative form of storytelling.
In truth, the overall festival results feel perplexing. The Best Director prize was awarded to Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias for his third feature Pepe, a film that uses the fate of one of Pablo Escobar’s hippos as a vehicle for a pipeline of cinematic tricks. While the jury’s decision to honor Arias is clear, the Best Leading Performance went to Sebastian Stan for A Different Man, a role that showcases subtlety in depicting a man grappling with personal prejudice, insecurity, and vanity. The Best Supporting Performance went to British actor Emily Watson, whose portrayal of a nun overseeing one infamous wash house in the Magdalene era reveals a chilling, caricatured portrayal of malevolent authority. These choices together form a lineup that invites reflection on how far festival prizes align with broader artistic ambitions and social relevance.