UNNATURAL MOTHERS vacuum WHITE GHOSTS BEHIND WORDS ASK WHAT YOU WANT CALLING HEDY LAMARR BERLIN – SIDE ENTRANCE Second home THE FORBIDDEN CAMERA Friendly enemy alien I AM FROM NOWHERE INFIDELITY Cinemania ND - Deutsches Neuland STUMBLING STONES The Stream RED AND BLUES SHEA SURFERGIRL

Impressum / Kontakt

WHITE GHOSTS

(D 2004) 72 mins / colour / Digi-Beta / 16:9

Dir.: Martin Baer

Producer: Gunter Hanfgarn

Funds: Nordmedia Fonds GmbH + Goethe Institute

Coproducers TV: ZDF/Arte

SYNOPSIS:

100 years after the colonial war against the Herero in the former German colonie South-West-Afrika, the documentary shows one of the darkest chapters of German colonial history. Filmmaker Martin Baer and his protagonist Israel Kaunatjike, a Namibian Herero, who was born in Okahandja and lives in Germany since many years travel to Windhoek, Okahandja and Swakopmund to find out about a well-kept secret in the Kaunatjike family: Israel Kaunatjike has two German grandfathers, which both were soldiers of the German Schutztruppen.

For him it will always remain unclear if these pregnances occured by rape of the Herero women, but for him personally colonialism is still not over, because very light skin reminds him of his mother´s fate and that he is not only African. Colonialism is part of his personal history. In the film he sets out to find the traces of his German ancestors. The film is a very personal and exciting roadmovie about two friends who try to find out about their past and succeed.