Benin Showbiz Latest News and Updates

EXCLUSIVE: Djimon Hounsou, the actor known for his Academy Award-nominated performances in Ed Zwick’s Blood Diamond and Jim Sheridan’s In America, has signed with Buchwald for representation.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “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.

The Match Factory has locked multi-territory deals on Berlinale titles Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky and Dying by Matthias Glasner, which picked up the festival’s Silver Bear for Best Screenplay.

Dahomey. The Golden Bear, the first to be awarded to a black filmmaker in the festival’s history, is about the return of 26 royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey from Paris to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin.MUBI has acquired the rights to the film for both the UK and the United States, among other territories.On the night Diop had the following to say when she collected her award:Kenyan-Mexican actor Lupita Nyong’o was president of this year’s jury.Elsewhere, the runner-up prize, the Silver Bear Grand Jury went to Korean filmmaker Hong Sansoo’s Yeohaengjaui pilyo (A Traveler’s Needs), while the Silver Bear Jury Prize was awarded to Bruno Dumont’s L’Empire.Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias scooped the Best Director award for Pepe, while the two main acting awards went to two performances in the English language.

Winners have been announced at the 74th Berlin Film Festival, with Dahomey by French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop scooping the coveted Golden Bear prize as the best film of the festival’s International Competition. Scroll down for the full list of winners, which were revealed Saturday evening at the Berlinale Palast.

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.

Somebody — or something — is speaking from inside a timber crate. “It’s so dark in here… a night so deep and opaque” read the subtitles; the voice is speaking in Fon, the local language of the West African country that was once called Dahomey and is now Benin. As the slats are nailed down, the voice is increasingly muffled; we are outside, but we are inside too, watching the light disappear.

Jessica Kiang In November 2021, 61 years after Benin gained independence from the French empire, 26 of the many thousands of plundered national antiquities were returned by France to their African home. Inserting an inquisitive, imaginative intelligence into this key moment in the troubled timeline of post-imperial cultural politics, French-Senegalese director Mati Diop fashions her superb, short but potent hybrid doc “Dahomey” as a slim lever that cracks open the sealed crate of colonial history, sending a hundred of its associated erasures and injustices tumbling into the light.

Ben Croll 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.

“The first shape I had in mind for this film was fiction,” filmmaker Mati Diop told a Berlin Film Festival presser this morning when quizzed on the structure of her inventive documentary Dahomey. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated immigration epic “Io Capitano” is gaining traction in movie theaters across the African continent, and will soon be touring villages in Senegal with the director in tow as part of an itinerant cinema initiative called Cinemovel. Shot over 13 weeks in Senegal, Italy and Morocco with a cast of non-professional actors, the Italian auteur’s latest feature — the title for which translates to “Me Captain” — narrates the Homeric journey of two young African men, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave the Senegalese capital of Dakar to go to Europe.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Dahomey,” a documentary directed by Cannes prizewinner Mati Diop (“Atlantique”) and slated for the Berlinale competition, will be represented internationally by Paris-based Les Films du Losange. The feature marks the directorial comeback of the French-Senegalese talent after winning the Grand Prize at Cannes with “Atlantique” in 2019.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Thomas “Eromose” Ikimi, director of the Tribeca Film Festival player “88,” has been tapped to write a new drama about a fierce wildlife preservationist and activist. Eromose will write the screenplay for “Manaka,” a story inspired by the organization Saving the Wild and its founder Jamie Joseph. The Zimbabwean-born South African founded the charitable foundation to help protect rhinos from poaching, as well as to tell authentic stories about frontline workers protecting the species from going extinct.

EXCLUSIVE: Mediawan Africa, the Republic of Benin and French-language international channel TV5 Monde are partnering to co-develop original daily fiction series The Best Is Yet To Come.

EXCLUSIVE: Djimon Hounsou, the two-time Academy Award-nominated actor known for roles in Ed Zwick’s Blood Diamond and Jim Sheridan‘s In America, has signed with Range Media Partners for management.

EXCLUSIVE: Dekanalog has picked up North American rights to the Sundance competition title Mami Wata, the third feature film from Nigerian filmmaker C.J. “Fiery” Obasi.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent  Sideshow and Janus Films have dropped the clip for Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s “Tori & Lokita” which had a strong opening in New York and Los Angeles on March 24 and is expanding this weekend to additional markets. The latest film by the two-time Palme d’Or winners, “Tori & Lokita” tells the timely story of two immigrants struggling to survive on the margins of society. The humanist drama won the 75th Anniversary Prize at Cannes in 2022. “’Tori Lokita’ is one of the most devastating cinematic experiences I’ve had in a long time,” said Martin Scorsese in a statement sent to Variety. “I’ve always admired the way that Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne make movies—their mastery is inseparable from their spiritual and ethical commitment to their characters, trying to make their way through an unforgiving world,” Scorsese continued. He went on to describe the film as “one of the Dardennes’ most harrowing films,” “also one of their greatest.”  

Beninese artist and songwriter Angélique Kidjo, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell have been announced as the recipients of this year’s Polar Music Prize.They will be presented with their prizes and 600,000 Swedish Kroner at a ceremony in Stockholm on 23 May, which will be livestreamed on YouTube if you fancy watching it.Bigging up this year’s winners, the prize’s MD Marie Ledin says: “Angélique Kidjo is an inspirational artist, she constantly explores and challenges and is one of the greatest singer-songwriters in international music. We are THRILLED to be recognising her talent and shining a light on her important work with the Batonga Foundation”.“Arvo Pärt is one of the most incredible composers the world has ever seen, and his beautiful music has touched audiences around the globe”, she adds.

Djimon Housou is getting candid about the systemic problems in Hollywood.The actor opened up in a new interview, while promoting his most recent film,, noting that, despite Oscar-nominated starring roles in acclaimed films likeand he still struggles to get his due respect when it comes to meaningful roles and contracts.«I still have to prove why I need to get paid,» he shared with. “They always come at me with a complete low ball: 'We only have this much for the role, but we love you so much and we really think you can bring so much.'«The Benin-born actor broke through on the international stage with his role as Cinqué in Steven Spielberg's.

Djimon Hounsou is getting very candid about how Hollywood has treated him.

Ben Croll Based in the northern French town of Lille since 2018, Series Mania has emerged as a key showcase for premium series and a spotlight for international creators — though, given the wider forces shaping the TV business, that spotlight has often shone on talent from the same three or four territories. And so, when programming the latest edition, the Series Mania brass looked to widen the field. “This year, we will introduce our attendees to new narrative modes and visual possibilities,” says general director Laurence Herszberg. “Because we’ve discovered so many series from countries that haven’t often attended the major festivals, with creative outputs that are much lesser-known. We want to celebrate them as well.”

The Record Club will welcome The Go! Team as its latest guests this week.

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.

The Go! Team have announced their new album ‘Get Up Sequences Part Two’ and shared first single ‘Divebomb’. Check it out below.The Brighton band, who released their sixth album ‘Get Up Sequences Part One’ last summer, will return with ‘Part Two’ on February 3, 2023 via Memphis Industries.First single ‘Divebomb’, a psychedelic, upbeat track with retro electric guitars and siren sound effects, features Detroit rapper IndigoYaj a makes a strong pro-choice statement.“Protest songs have always been a balancing act,” The Go! Team’s Ian Parton said in a statement. “If you’re too sledgehammer it’s cringey, like the Scorpions’ ‘Winds of Change’ or something, but at the same time given the stuff they’re trying to pull with abortion rights it feels weird to ignore it.”Parton also described the forthcoming album as a “global fruit salad, sharing that he travelled to Benin, Japan, France, India, Texas, and Detroit to work with various musical collaborators.“Wildly different voices from wildly different cultures side by side but all still sounding unmistakably Go! Team,” he added.Guest collaborators include Star Feminine Band, Bollywood singer Neha Hatwar, Kokubo Chisato from J-Pop band Lucie Too, Nitty Scott, and Hilarie Bratset, formerly of Apples In Stereo.Find the full ‘Get Up Sequences Part Two’ tracklist below.1. ‘Look Away, Look Away’2. ‘Divebomb’3. ‘Getting To Know (All The Ways We’re Wrong For Each Other)’4. ‘Stay and Ask Me In a Different Way’5. ‘The Me Frequency’6. ‘Whammy-O’7. ‘But We Keep On Trying’8. ‘Sock It To Me’9. ‘GoingNowhere’10. ‘Gemini’11. ‘Train Song’12. ‘Baby’The Go! Team will also tour the UK in March 2023.

The Go! Team have shared new song "Divebomb," the first singlefrom the U.K. group's new album Get Up Sequences Part Two. "Divebomb" features Detroit rapper IndigoYaj and is a pro-choice protest song.

Jon Burlingame editor It took the combined talents of four Grammy winners, a symphony orchestra and a choir of African-American opera singers to make “The Woman King” resonate with the sounds of 19th-century West Africa. “This was one of those once-in-a-lifetime films,” says composer Terence Blanchard of director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s project, for which he wrote a powerful score – the likes of which haven’t been heard in a period African film since Quincy Jones’ “Roots” 45 years ago. “All of your experiences lead you to this moment, to work on something like this,” says the two-time Oscar nominee and five-time Grammy winner. “As soon as I saw it, I was floored. I looked at these characters as the founding DNA of all the strong African-American women I experienced growing up.”

first look at Halle Bailey in Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” trailer. Critics don’t have an issue with Davis playing a strong Black leader in “The Woman King,” but are alarmed that the history of the Dahomey tribe, who sold other Africans into slavery, has been whitewashed. “Time to Boycott the Woman King movie.

John Boyega lost friends after he made an emotional speech backing the Black Lives Matter campaign two years ago. The actor, a proud and vocal activist on issues affecting Black people and communities, spoke during a 2020 protest in London's Hyde Park after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in America. During his rallying cry, he implored listeners to remember those who had died from police brutality, urged Black men to take care of Black women and even commented, "Look, I don't know if I'm going to have a career after this, but f**k that.

Women take up the fight in Viola Davis’s new historical epic.

Sasha Urban editorViola Davis is no stranger to transformations. In the past couple years alone, she’s played DC’s Amanda Waller, Ma Rainey and even Michelle Obama. But in the warrior epic “The Woman King,” the trailer for which dropped Wednesday, Davis plays a character unlike any she’s played before.Davis stars in the film as Nanisca, the general of the real all-female military unit known as the Agojie (also known as Amazons) in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin) in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

African filmmaker Toyin Ibrahim Adekeye’s first feature documentary film, Bigger Than Africa, is scheduled to premiere on global streaming platform, Netflix.

Who is nominated for Best Global Music Performances?The nominees all hail from Africa and Asia, with many representing Nigeria. Pakistan-born, Brooklyn-based singer and composer Arooj Aftab is nominated for her song “Mohabbat”. Nominated for their collaboration of “Do Yourself,” is Angelique Kidjo, a Beninese singer-songwriter, and Burna Boy, a Nigerian singer/rapper.

EXCLUSIVE: Warrior Women With Lupita Nyong’o, a documentary about a forgotten female army, is heading to Smithsonian Channel.

Nigerian authorities on Wednesday, as part of a modest but growing effort in some European countries to return African art taken by colonial powers.Jesus College is the first U.K. institution to give back one of the artifacts known as the Benin Bronzes.

France is displaying 26 looted colonial-era artifacts for one last time before returning them home to Benin.The wooden anthropomorphic statues, royal thrones and sacred altars were pilfered by the French army in the 19th century from Western Africa.President Emmanuel Macron suggested that France now needed to right the wrongs of the past, making a landmark speech in 2017 in which he said he can no longer accept "that a large part of many African countries’ cultural heritage lies in France.” It

The U.S. on Thursday regained a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, three years after the previous administration withdrew from it.