Detzman Walking

Summary

During World War I, the German colonial officer Hermann Detzner hid in the highland jungle of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Land, now Papua New Guinea. Alone with a parrot, he endured a strange ordeal in which he nearly went insane. Back in Germany, he wrote a book about this time, Four Years Among Cannibals. There, Detzner describes himself alternately as the Humboldt of Oceania or a daring guerrilla fighter against the Australians. The episodes in the book are, to a large extent, inventions and glorifications of himself. German missionaries uncovered these fantasies, and Detzner, briefly famous, fell into oblivion. Some in the district of Finschhafen, however, regard him now was a deity who, in secret, does good. The artist group Mangan25 explores this story on their expedition into Papua New Guinea. It is a story of fierce post-colonial upheavals.

Source: 57th International Hof film festival 2023