Measures of Men

Synopsis

Berlin at the end of the 19th Century. Alexander Hoffmann is an ambitious PhD student of Ethnology. When a delegation of the Herero and Nama tribes travels to Berlin during a ‘Colonial Exhibition’, he takes a special interest in their young female translator Kezia Kambazembi as subject for his studies. Impressed by her intellect, he begins to question the common racial theories of white supremacy, whilst the delegation fails in their attempt to negotiate for better conditions with the German Kaiser and returns to Namibia, where the political tensions are growing worse over time and culminate in the Herrero uprising and brutal retaliations of the German imperial army. In this tense atmosphere, Hoffmann eagerly joins an ethnological expedition under the army’s protection to gather scientifically ‘valuable’ artefacts, whilst trying to collect further proof for his progressive theories and to find Kezia. Hoffmann experiences the brutality of war and the massacres among the local population. Slowly he begins to lose his moral compass with his ambitions depending on the promotion by the opportunistic and deeply racist professor von Waldstätten. When he finally encounters the brutalized Kezia in a concentration camp, he can neither face her nor himself. Hoffmann achieves his career goals by denying his true beliefs and chooses not to speak out against the common theory of white supremacy that will soon contribute to an even darker chapter in German history.

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