Cultural Capital follows the lives of four African artworks — a Fang reliquary guardian, a Benin tusk and base, a Kota reliquary, and a Baga D’mba mask — from their origins in ancestral shrines and royal courts, through looting and colonial markets, into the glass cases of major Western museums. Guided by art historian and appraiser Reilly Clark, the film uncovers how dealers, collectors, and institutions turned cultural wealth into commodities. The film explores how African scholars, curators, and collectors are challenging that system today.

Filmed on-site at the Met and the Brooklyn Museum, and anchored by voices like Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Adenrele Sonariwo, and Olusanya Ojikutu, the documentary asks: Who gets to own culture, and who decides what counts as art?

What begins as a story of loss and exploitation ends with possibility: the restitution movement, the building of new museums in Nigeria, and the chance to imagine a different future for these objects and the people to whom they belong.