Tagline:

Every weekend, he becomes a Native American warrior in the forests of Saxony. Now the people he idolises want him to stop - and he's refusing, just as they once did. 

Synopsis:

In the forests of Saxony, a man in his late sixties lays out hand-stitched buckskin, beaded moccasins, and a feathered headdress that has taken him years to perfect. He paints his face. He becomes a Native American Plains warrior — as he has every weekend for fifty years. He is one of thousands of Germany's Indianerfreunde, a century-old subculture rooted in the novels of Karl May. In East Germany, where he grew up behind the Iron Curtain, playing Indian was an act of quiet rebellion — a way to dream of freedom while the Stasi watched.

What he loves most about Native American culture is its spirit of resistance: warriors who refused to let an outside force strip them of who they were. He does not yet see the irony. Because now, Native American voices are calling his tradition cultural appropriation and demanding he stop. His response is to hold his ground — to keep stitching, keep dancing, keep showing up in full regalia. He is making the same defiant stand he has always worshipped, except he is now facing the very people who inspired it.

But the picture is more tangled than it first appears. For decades, Germans and Native Americans have built real friendships around this subculture. Some Native Americans living in Germany are critical; some are affectionate; some are caught in the middle. The film follows one man through the rituals of his devotion — and the slow recognition that the story he has built his life around may have a meaning he never intended. 

Project representatives:

Jerome Isaac (Director)