Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on selected works by Klaus Stephan, ‘Resident Special Correspondent’ for Bavarian Broadcasting (BR) in 1960s Nigeria. Three works will be read against each other as an entangled continuum in which fictional filmic storytelling becomes an extension of journalistic book reportage.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on selected works by Klaus Stephan, German writer and journalist who from 1960-1971 served as ‘Resident Special Correspondent’ for the Bavarian Broadcasting Cooperation (BR) in Nigeria and Ethiopia. During his time in Nigeria Stephan produced three major works available to me: a travelogue entitled _Nigeria: Reise gegen die Zeit_ [Nigeria: Journey against Time] (1961), a four-part documentary _Götter der Könige – Emire des Propheten_ [Gods of the Kings – Emirs of the Prophet] (1963) and a fictional feature film _Taiwo Shango: Der 2. Tag nach dem Tod_ [Taiwo Shango: the Second Day after the Death] (1965) which makes controversial use of an historical incident in mid-1940s Oyo. Produced in cooperation with Nigerian television (NTS), _Taiwo Shango_ can be considered the culmination of Stephan’s Nigeria coverage, though it caused some controversy on the ground and was seemingly neglected after its single 1965 broadcast on ARD. The film can be seen as a concrete cultural manifestation of Pratt’s ‘contact zone’ (2007) in that it is the outcome of an interdependent engagement of two national cultural industries with uneven power and production realities in which a certain image, and thus certain knowledge, of ‘Africa’ was construed, largely for a German audience. As such, the film reflects and creates social and artistic discourses of the time, but also challenges and disrupts these. I will read the three works against each other as an entangled continuum in which fictional filmic storytelling becomes an extension of journalistic book reportage.