ifs-Begegnung zu »Der vermessene Mensch« mit Regisseur Lars Kraume und Szenenbildner Sebastian Soukup

"ifs Encounter" on "The Measured Man"
with director Lars Kraume and production designer Sebastian Soukup

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 | 7 pm
Free admission | Event in German language

Filmforum NRW | Cinema at the Museum Ludwig
Bischofsgartenstr. 1 | 50667 Cologne

On the big screen:

"The Measured Man"
(D 2023, screenplay/director: Lars Kraume, production: Thomas Kufus, production design: Sebastian Soukup, 116 min., FSK: 12, funded by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW)

Panel discussion:

"What you don't want to see - Matters of perspectives or Eurocentric blinders"

Guests: Director Lars Kraume, production designer and ifs-Prof. Sebastian Soukup
Moderation: Dorothee Wenner (independent film curator - Berlinale/Panorama, among others -, filmmaker)
Berlin, end of the 19th century. When a delegation of Herero and Nama from "German Southwest Africa" travels to Berlin, ethnology doctoral student Alexander Hoffmann meets the group's interpreter, Kezia Kambazembi. He develops an intense interest in the Herero and Nama - and after his encounters with them contradicts the common evolutionist racial theory. Shortly afterwards, the Herero and Nama uprising in the colony leads to war with the German occupiers. Hoffmann travels through the country under the protection of the imperial army and collects artifacts left behind for the ethnological museum. On site, he witnesses how German soldiers carry out the extermination order with inhuman severity. But the ethnologist also increasingly crosses moral boundaries ...

"Der vermessene Mensch" is the first German feature film about the shocking colonial crimes in Nambia, which were suppressed from the collective memory of the Germans. Shot at original locations and created in close cooperation with Namibian artists, the film not only offers an examination of social responsibility and the power of the medium of film, but also poses fundamental questions about Eurocentric views of the world.

Director and author Lars Kraume has received numerous awards for his films. In 2016, he won the German Film Award in six categories (including Best Film and Best Director) for "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer". For "The Silent Classroom" he received the Peace Prize of German Film - The Bridge.
Sebastian Soukup took over the professorship for Production Design at the ifs in May 2023. He works as a production designer and art director for German and international feature film productions with directors such as Wim Wenders, Volker Schlöndorff, Jordan Scott and Julie Delpy, Larry Charles and Christoph Schlingensief. He was nominated for the German Film Award in the Best Production Design category for his production design for both "Der vermessene Mensch" and "Narziss und Goldmund".

Lars Kraume and Sebastian Soukup will then discuss the genesis of the film through to its reception. They will discuss the explosive nature of coming to terms with the painful history at original locations in direct cooperation with the descendants of the indigenous Nama and Herero in Namibia. A perspective that critically enriches the reception of the film with both dismaying and hopeful impressions.
How can we contribute to replacing outdated patterns of Western viewing habits? What contribution can and must visual culture make in order to reanimate the failed philosophy of enlightenment - in view of Europe's still collectively repressed history of brutal conquest?

An event organized by the ifs International Film School Cologne as part of the Filmforum NRW e.V.