Benin, My Heart: award-winning documentary heads for New York after sell-out screenings in Cotonou and Paris

Cotonou — A documentary made in Benin, about Benin and directed by a Beninese filmmaker is on its way to American classrooms. Mon Cœur au Bénin ("Benin, My Heart") will be screened at the Lycée Français de New York on 27 January 2027, in a 350-seat auditorium, as part of a United States tour that runs until May.

The 46-minute film, directed by Dyreck Ahounou of the Cotonou-based Lollipop Studio Productions, traces nearly 20 years of work by the solidarity organisation Hirondelle de l'Avenir. Its tagline is "Where bonds become a promise."

Sold out at home

The film had its world premiere at the Majestic Cinéma in Wologuèdè, Cotonou, on 31 May 2026, to a full house. Two earlier screenings at the Forum des Images in Paris, on 5 and 26 March, sold out within days, with 600 viewers in total.

Over the summer it toured northern Benin, with screenings in Natitingou, at the University of Parakou and at the Institut Français de Parakou, where the children supported by the organisation came to see themselves on screen. At the sixth FestIFIS in Nikki, the International Festival of Identity and Solidarity Films of the Baru Teem, it won the Audience Award.

In August it was recognised among the award-winning documentaries at the 9th Aryan International Children's Film Festival in Jaipur, India. Benin's national broadcaster, SRTB, has signed an agreement to show it on television, and it has been submitted to more than 20 festivals worldwide.

Faces, not figures

The film was shot during a solidarity trip in November 2025. Rather than narrating from outside, it lets the people the organisation supports tell the story: children, young people, women and families in Cotonou, Parakou, Natitingou and other towns, along with the local teams who work with them. Among them are Bio Faouza, sponsored since 2017 in Parakou, Thérèse, supported since 2019, and Malika, supported since 2022. One scene shows a reunion with a Fulani family in Natitingou.

"Too often, solidarity work is reduced to figures, reviews or reports," the director's statement says. "Yet behind every data point there is a story, a face, a voice, a life path." The film, it adds, "does not try to speak for those it films, but to give them the space to exist fully on screen."

A Beninese director's first feature

Ahounou, born Jesugnon Gédéon Tite Phinees Stek Ahounou, studied marketing before teaching himself film and video. His early work won a merit award for a project with Canal Olympia, one of West Africa's leading cinema networks, and he has made films for the BRVM regional stock exchange, CFAO Motors Benin and the Chamber of Notaries of Benin. Mon Cœur au Bénin is his first feature-length documentary. It was co-produced by Sophie Thouvenel, founder of Hirondelle de l'Avenir.

On tour in America

According to the organisers, the US tour opened in Miami at the end of October with screenings for French-programme students at the International Studies Charter School and at Florida International University. The film was also shown in Fort-de-France, Martinique, on 6 November.

After New York, it goes to Orlando in early 2027, with the Alliance Française of Greater Orlando, a training day of the American Association of Teachers of French on 6 February, and the University of Central Florida. In May 2027 it will be shown in Los Angeles during Benin Week, at the invitation of the Beninese diaspora in the United States.

Each screening is followed by a discussion with Thouvenel on education, women's empowerment, cooperation between France, the United States and West Africa, and the place of African stories on screen. The film is in French, with an English version available. The trailer is on YouTube.

Source: Mon Cœur au Bénin US press kit, November 2026.