The Civilizers – Germans in Guatemala

For more than a century, Guatemala has been home to a small yet highly influential German community. Its prosperity began with the coffee boom and has continued, almost uninterrupted, to the present day. Convinced of belonging to a superior culture, its members sought to impose their model of civilization on Guatemala. Elder coffee barons present faded photographs, and through their stories, the history of colonization unfolds. But the film shifts its gaze toward the other, toward the Indigenous people who labor on the plantations. The film portrays several generations of families and, without commentary, presents twentieth-century attitudes that time has relativized but not changed. A journey through questions of power, identity, and civilization. Based on years of extensive research, it offers a new analysis of colonialism and its destructive consequences in Guatemala and Latin America.

Cast

Julio Achilá Self

Esteban Caal Self

Felipe Caal Self

Comunidades de Población en Resistencia (CPR) Selves

Vicente Cruz Self

Julio Delgado Self

Jacobo Santiago Contreras Self

Familia Droege Selves

Mathilde Dieseldorff-Quirin Self

Fritz García-Gallon Self

Lily de Heinemann Self

Manfred Krarz Self

Metadata from the source database.