Arte - The Real African Queen (2004)

– Original title “Die lange Fahrt der Graf Goetzen Von Papenburg nach Afrika” –

An old ship rocks gently on the waters of Lake Tanganyika, but there is more to this boat than meets the eye. A ship immortalized by a Hollywood legend, few know of her existence today. The Graf Goetzen's story offers a fascinating glimpse into the extraordinary people who fought for her survival and shaped the history of Africa. In 1913, three shipwrights from Papenburg receive an unusual order they have to build a passenger ship and transport it to Lake Tanganyika in German East Africa, deep into the heart of the black continent. An impossible mission! After sailing from Germany to the coast of Africa, the steamer is dismantled and taken to the lake by rail and then on the back of local porters. A few months after the “Graf Goetzen” is put into service, the First World War seizes Eastern Africa. The Germans escape hastily from their colony. Only the three men from Papenburg must remain by the lake and carry out one last command the “Goetzen” has to be sunk; under no circumstances can it fall into the hands of the enemy. The Papenburg Meyer shipyard is known for building luxurious super cruise ships. Less luxurious, but extremely durable, is a Papenburg steamship that has been sailing Lake Tanganyika in the heart of Africa for almost 90 years the “Graf Goetzen”. She has experienced pretty much everything that can happen to a ship She ran as a freighter, ferry, refugee transporter, gunboat, sank several times, was repeatedly lifted and once even blown up - but only with a trick in the film classic “African Queen”… Today the steamer is called “Liemba” and is probably the oldest regularly operating liner in the world. Its original owners named it after the German Africa explorer Graf von Goetzen. The ship was commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913 to support German protection troops in the African colonies. It made its way from the Ems to Lake Tanganyika in what was then the colony of German East Africa in 5,000 crates by ship, rail and even on foot. There, three Papenburg engineers assembled the ship and received a “tropical surcharge” for it. And when the First World War broke out, “Graf Goetzen” even presented itself as a gunboat. The film describes the eventful and sometimes involuntarily funny story of this floating museum piece from the perspective of people whose lives were or are fatefully linked to the ship Germans, Belgians, Britons, Tanzanians. A piece of colonial history and a journey through recent Tanzanian history, maybe a touch of “Fitzcarraldo”. The film was shot on original locations in Tanzania, Zambia, Papenburg and Brussels.

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