On Africa

Synopsis

Skip Norman shot ‘On Africa’ after graduating from the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB). On the level of the image, we see tracking shots through West Berlin, information detailing the economic gains of colonialist exploitations, and photographs from West Africa, while the soundtrack shares facts about the continent’s conquest and decolonization. As Norman himself put it: “The starting point is the relationship between Europe’s prosperity and Africa’s poverty; Europe’s destruction of societies and cultures, and the simultaneous use of Christianity and racial theories as justification for a massive exploitation of the colonized.” ‘On Africa’ was first shown in 1970 and then broadcast on television by WDR in 1972. In 2020, the Harun Farocki Institut was able to digitize a 16mm print from the archive at the WDR.