In today’s decolonial and postcolonial landscape, European cultural institutions are increasingly prioritizing the restitution of filmic heritage.

Parallel to these institutional shifts, scholars and artists are launching innovative interventions within archives—using practices like found footage filmmaking to reassemble historical fragments into new narratives. These creative acts do more than just reuse old film; they actively question established notions of authorship, origin, and historical context.

"The heart of this project lies in seventy-eight film rolls from expeditions to southern Ethiopia in the 1950s, held at the Frobenius Institute archive in Frankfurt am Main."

These films capture local traditions and social structures before the critical transformations that reshaped Ethiopia later in the 20th century, offering an irreplaceable visual record of the region’s diverse communities. The production of these films was governed by the rigorous standards of the Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film (IWF) in Göttingen. Much of this material contributed to the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica, a monumental catalogue designed to document human activity with clinical precision.

Today, these films serve as the foundational material for our contemporary decolonial re-evaluations and artistic interventions. Our research focuses on the interaction between archival objects and their viewers. By utilizing socio-material approaches, we highlight the reciprocal relationship between films and the networks in which they exist.

Furthermore, we employ ethnological methods that incorporate indigenous concepts in a non-reductive, comparative manner. This enables a reconceptualization of history through indigenous metaphysical and ontological perspectives.

"By placing these historical sources in the hands of contemporary indigenous filmmakers, we explore how memory and knowledge are constructed today."

Research & Objectives

The project explores the epistemological and ethnographic potential of found footage/archival film in Ethiopia. We work in a transdisciplinary framework that combines film restitution, found footage film production, and anthropological fieldwork.

  • Research in the archives of the Frobenius Institute using computer-assisted film analysis.
  • Film screenings conducted with indigenous communities to investigate film and media reception.
  • Artist residencies where Ethiopian filmmakers produce new works based on ethnographic film collections.

The Goal

Through these collaborations, researchers and filmmakers focus on the interplay between new ontologies and historical sources. Our goal is to question the primacy of the original ethnographic author as the sole source of knowledge and to examine how memory is constructed through archival material.