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Berlin Premiere: Skulls of My People with director Vincent Moloi present
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Event information
| Rosenthaler Straße 40/41 10178 Berlin |
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According to a review of SKULLS OF MY PEOPLE in the SA newspaper Mail & Guardian, it was an innocent question that drew South African filmmaker Vincent Moloi's attention to a hard-fought struggle for land rights and reparation payments in neighbouring Namibia. He caught a glimpse of a photo picturing a traditional Herero dress and asked himself why it reminded him of European fashions. He then researched and came across the horrifying yet little known history of the genocide committed under German colonial rule in the 20th century. It wiped out four fifths of all Hereros (100,000 in total) and half of all Namas (10,000). Moloi realised that none of his friends knew a thing about it. He knew this was the story to be told. Over the course of eight years, he documented the struggle of the Herero and Nama people, who demand both the German government to pay reparations and to recognise their crimes and the Namibian government to return the land that was stolen from them and is now in possession of white settlers.
Film screening in attendance of director Vincent Moloi and represenatives of the OvaHerero and Nama, Esther Muinjangue and Ida Hoffmann.
"Moloi’s document of a grassroots organisation taking on the intransigence of their government, and the Germans, tells a broader tale of post-imperialism and identity politics that pervades modern Namibia, resonates across the continent, and speaks urgently to the global sectarian wars that dominate the airwaves."
- Encounters International Documentary Film Festival, South Africa
About the director
Vincent Moloi was born in Soweto, South Africa and is today one of SA's most innovative and productive film makers. His film career started aptly in documentaries and rapidly moved to fiction films. Since then, he is has produced and directed over fifty documentary films and more then ten tv series, i.e. THE LAB, SOCIETY 1, SOUL CITY and A PLACE CALLED HOME. He received numerous international prizes, among them the African Trailblazer Award at the international TV Filmfestival MIPCOM in Cannes.
The film screening is a ccoperation between FilmInitiative Köln, Berlin-Postkolonial, the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation and AfricAvenir.
With the financial support of Bread for the World.