NAUA HUNI - INDIANERBLICK AUF DIE ANDERE WELT

Barbara Keifenheim
Germany 1984 | 64 Min. | DVD, OF

When our own image becomes the image of oth­er­ness: Ama­zo­nia, 1980. Imag­ine: Deep in the jungle, images of every­day life in Ger­many appear out of the dark­ness – images of men work­ing in mines and fac­to­ries, the col­or­ful wall­pa­per of the era, the tra­di­tion­al German family with two chil­dren. What sort of impres­sion of us is pro­duced? What are the Huni Kuin led to believe about the lives of the “whites,” those who posses metal, the “rich“? The indige­nous group’s own cre­ation myth grap­ples with ques­tions of the other, cat­e­go­riz­ing human­i­ty, and dis­tin­guish­ing between var­i­ous peo­ples. Indeed, vivid imag­in­ings of what con­sti­tutes “us” and the “others” are anchored in their cul­ture. After many years of field­work in the Peru­vian Amazon region, direc­tor Bar­bara Keifen­heim decid­ed to con­front the indige­nous people living there with a film depict­ing German big-city life. The diverse reac­tions of her Peru­vian audi­ence are a true source of enrich­ment, enabling us to take an unvar­nished look at our own cul­ture and allow­ing us to under­stand why the double mean­ing of their word “naua huni“ – white man and hal­lu­ci­na­tion – is no coincidence.