Film can be used in historical education to establish a postcolonial visual historiography. Yet, the presentist characteristics of the medium also pose a challenge for a critical didactical approach: Most of the German documentaries about... more
Film can be used in historical education to establish a postcolonial visual historiography. Yet, the presentist characteristics of the medium also pose a challenge for a critical didactical approach: Most of the German documentaries about the colonial past use historical sources that were created from a dominant colonial perspective and thus, a eurocentric and racist epistemology is inscribed into the material.In our article we give an overview over the developments within different documentary films on colonialism. By drawing on postcolonial and film theory we discuss strategies – regarding form and content – that are used in realistic and reflexive films to (re-) present the colonial past. By focusing specifically on the use of historical sources and on the category of/multiperspectivity/, we analyze the various films’ contributions from the viewpoint of a critical history didactics.
