This year's Kigali Cine Junction opens with a luminous outdoor screening of Dahomey (2024) at Imbuga City Walk, in the presence of the distributor; Claire Diao.

Directed by the Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, Dahomey was the 2024 Berlinale Golden Bear winner and also one of the top 10 films of 2024. It traces the homecoming of 26 royal artifacts looted during colonial rule, as they journey from France back to Benin. Mati Diop’s latest work sets the tone for the festival’s theme, Threads of Connection, with a haunting meditation on heritage, absence, and return.

But in Diop’s poetic vision, this restitution is more than a political gesture—it becomes a spiritual reckoning. The film summons the voices of students, spirits, and ancestors, weaving a tapestry where the past is not merely remembered, but reawakened.

Dahomey invites viewers to feel the intangible. It is a powerful opening note for a festival devoted to the subtle, enduring threads that connect us all.