MAJUB’S JOURNEY / MAJUBS REISE

country, year

Germany, 2013  

genre

documentary  

running time

50′  

directed by

Eva Knopf  

language

German  

subtitles

English  

synopsis

This documentary film, with the help of archival footage of German cinema, presents an amazing story. The journey of a self-proclaimed soldier of the second German Reich, Majub bin Adam Mohamed Hussein embarks on his travel in the 1930s. From his native Dar es Salaam, he goes to Nazi Germany where he seeks recognition of his service to the German Emperor in the First World War. He does not receive official recognition, but impressed by Germany, he decides to stay. He gets a job as a statist and a sideman in many blockbusters of the time, while participating in the neo-colonial movement and tries to connect the German regime with his homeland. Majub’s life ends in 1944 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he is taken for violating the “racial code,” after engaging in a love affair with a young German woman. This is the amazing biography of the African Majub, set against the background of German Film and colonial history. 

 

about the author

Eva Knopf studied Cultural Anthropology in Göttingen, Rhetoric Film Theory at the University of California, Berkeley and documentary filmmaking at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg. She teaches Visual and Media Anthropology at Freie Universität, Berlin and is a reaserach fellow for the project ‘History of documentary film in Germany’, funded by the German national research foundation. For many years, Eva worked as a projectionist in art house theaters. Majub’s Journey (Majubs Reise) is Eva’s diploma film from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.  

festivals

DOK Leipzig – German Competition (2013); It’s all true, Brazil (2014); Japan Media Arts Festival – Jury Selection (2013)