German documentary BLICKWECHSEL (in English: CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE) takes an interesting new look at volunteering in Africa: Instead of those of the volunteers we get to hear the voices of the people who work with them in Africa. All those children and teachers, doctors and social workers, priests and nuns who see the white people come, stay a while and go back to that land of legends, Germany. Many a legend is destroyed in the process: Africans learn that their youngsters are sometimes tougher than the German adults, that even in Europe money doesn’t grow on trees and that everyone remains changed for a lifetime, when such different cultures meet. Volunteers learn that there are things they cannot change and that they are sometimes way in over their heads. Filmmakers Christian Weinert and Ferdinand Carrière (both have been volunteers too, and they gave us a most interesting interview) have shot the countless statements in South Afrive, Ghana and Gambia in only two months and spent their zero budget on merely three months of postproduction. There are two things which set this documentary apart from all others of the same theme: it is neither whiny nor patronizing and it does not have one dull moment. Kudos!
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