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For decades, Swiss traveller René Gardi (1909-2000) explained the African continent and its inhabitants to us. In books, television programs and films, he waxed poetic about the beautiful naked "savages" and the pre-modern era in which they apparently lived. This supposedly idyllic world became Gardi’s paradise, as Africa was transformed into a projection screen for the desires of the audience back home.
The film African Mirror tells the story of our problematic image of Africa using materials from Gardi’s archive, whose ambivalent pictures mirror our European self-conception in myriad ways. The film reveals image production as a form of colonialism and shows how we have refused to truly look into this mirror to this very day.

For decades, Swiss traveller René Gardi (1909-2000) explained the African continent and its inhabitants to us. In books, television programs and films, he waxed poetic about the beautiful naked "savages" and the pre-modern era in which they apparently lived. This supposedly idyllic world became Gardi’s paradise, as Africa was transformed into a projection screen for the desires of the audience back home.
The film African Mirror tells the story of our problematic image of Africa using materials from Gardi’s archive, whose ambivalent pictures mirror our European self-conception in myriad ways. The film reveals image production as a form of colonialism and shows how we have refused to truly look into this mirror to this very day.