Samba, der Held des Urwalds

The same year that Attilio Gatti was coaxing Zulus in front of his lens in South Africa, cinematographer August Brückner joined forces with writer Pola Bauer-Adamara in the interest of capturing a true-life picture of African tribal peoples. They gained the support of the well-known German company Emelka and set off as neophyte directors into the wilds of West Africa, where they too pondered the benefits of a boy-gets-and-loses-girl strategy. The ethnographic angle did not detain them very long, as neither had that background; rather, they proceeded to encourage the natives to be imaginative in contributing to their more thrilling ideas. Their ultimate conceit was to imagine their project as the first truly African film made by Africans themselves, and the film was widely promoted as such. The similarities with Siliva the Zulu are remarkable, but this film wears its intrigues on its sleeve.