Film Tells the Story of a Tragedy Perpetrated in Africa by German Colonial Troops

It was one of the darkest eras in German history, and the first genocide of the 20th century: the mass killing of tens of thousands of people in German Southwest Africa after a rebellion against colonial rule by the Herero and Nama tribes. More than 100 years later, a feature film about the violence perpetrated by Germany in what is now Namibia explores that brutal colonial past for the first time. Its director hopes Measures of Men will bring the calamitous episode to the attention of ordinary Germans. Measures of Men, filmed mainly on location in Namibia using local crew and expertise, tells the story of Alexander Hoffmann – played by Leonard Scheicher – a young, idealistic but wide-eyed ethnologist who questions the evolutionist racial theories of the time, according to which sizes and shapes of skulls determined intelligence.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN