The Civilizers – Germans in Guatemala

The Civilizers – Germans in Guatemala (1998)

Documentary

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.

Directors: Uli Stelzner, Thomas Walther.

Casts

	Julio Achilá as Self
	Esteban Caal as Self
	Felipe Caal as Self
	Comunidades de Población en Resistencia (CPR) as Selves
	Vicente Cruz as Self
	Julio Delgado as Self
	Jacobo Santiago Contreras as Self
	Familia Droege as Selves
	Mathilde Dieseldorff-Quirin as Self
	Fritz García-Gallon as Self
	Lily de Heinemann as Self
	Manfred Krarz as Self
	Inge Schleehauf as Self
	Carlos Quirin as Self
	Rev. Marco Tulio Recinos as Self
	Herbert Seibert as Self
	Arne Sapper as Self
	Miguel Bareda as Voice
	Juan Gehring as Voice
	German Cuervo as Voice
	Cesar Figueroa as Voice
	Oscar Chicharro as Voice
	Laura Santiso as Voce
	Teresa Cosci as Voice
	Cristina García as Voice
	Marcos Aragón as Voice
	Martin Alvarado as Voice
	Elmor Camparanes as Voce
	Ruben David Meza Aguliar as Voice
	Ana Flora Doddis Jara as Voice
	Andreas Behn as Voice

Crew