IMAGE RESTITUTION is a case study about the reception of a socialist anti-apartheid documentary in Namibia 50 years after its making. Films extracted from Namibia are often stored in western archives and are unknown and inaccessible to local audiences.

A 16 mm reel of the East German television documentary “Namibia – the Forgotten Colony” (1976, Dr Sabine Katins) was found at the National Archives of Namibia. The lm was shot clandestinely at the height of the apartheid together with the liberation movement SWAPO and shows the structural inequalities and segregation between the Black and white population, which has its origins in the German colonial era. Made during the Cold War, it exposed West Germany’s complicity in apartheid, accusing it of having close relations with the German-Namibian minority. The documentary was presented at the United Nations in support of Namibia’s independence struggle from South Africa and it won the Golden Dove at the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival. It is propaganda, but touches on sensitive issues like the genocide of the Ovaherero, Nama, Damara and San, a silenced and unresolved theme until today.

“Namibia – the Forgotten Colony” had never previously been shown publicly in Namibia. Laura Horelli started the project in 2021 when she found two East German TV documentaries shot in Namibia at the German Broadcasting Archive and met an anonymous cameraman of the lms, John Green. Her approach to the subject matter as a non-Namibian was to use her privilege to access German archives. In autumn 2024 she invited the Namibian artists Hildegard Titus and Mwalengwa Hillebrecht, both of whom she knows since several years to join IMAGE RESTITUTION. Digitalised copies found from German archives were screened in Windhoek at the University of Namibia in Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja’s performing arts class and in Swakopmund. Hildegard Titus moderated the discussions after the screenings: “I wanted to ask everyone, 49 years later since this lm was made, do you think much has changed?” Safe spaces for mainly younger Namibians of different ethnicities born after the independence were created. Meaningful intergenerational dialogue around memory, trauma, archives and Namibian- German relations was fostered. In workshops participants chose a clip from the lm and developed their own artistic interventions like poetry voice-over or re-enactment to reclaim their own history.

Mwalengwa Hillebrecht was especially interested in the role that women like the forgotten activist Martha Ford played in the liberation struggle. She interviewed the daughter Mildred Ford and Bella Cupido, a protagonist from the original lm who is still alive. Efforts were made to involve the German-Namibians in the conversation about reconciliation. This however back red at Swakopmund Museum, which was the only venue not to allow the discussion about “Namibia – the Forgotten Colony” to be documented. Hildegard Titus organised a decolonial tour in Windhoek town centre in commemoration of the Hornkranz massacre of 1893, when German colonial troops attacked a Nama village.

IMAGE RESTITUTION was produced together with Joel and Sophie Haikali (Joe Vision Production). A small local crew consisting of the cinematographer Antonius Tsuob and the sound person Kauna Hoabeb documented the process of viewing, discussing and reshaping Namibia – the Forgotten Colony. Participants were given the option of being on or off camera. IMAGE RESTITUTION was edited by the directors and Janina Herhoffer in Berlin and Windhoek. It was crucial to present work-in-progress versions in various stages to the protagonists and local audiences in Windhoek, Ongwediva, Rundu and Oranjemund 2025-2026.

Below documentation of selected “Namibia – the Forgotten Colony” screenings and IMAGE RESTITUTION work-in-progress screenings.