ELSE; THE MULATTO

This film shows the conflict of Elsa who is of German / African origin, born 80 years ago as the unacknowledged fruit of the harem of the German colonial elite. Her father, vice-governor Jesco von Puttkamer, returned to far away Germany, leaving Else behind as a half-caste child. Now Elsa is an old mulatto woman, who has suffered her entire life from having had neither a father nor having been accepted by either German or African culture. The film compares the Else’s fate that of her only half sister (of German aristocratic descent) with the heart-rending images of the forgotten mulatto from Africa.

Colonialism, Culture, Ethnology, History, Human Interest, Oral History, Portrait, Women