Free screening of the film "Of Happy Hippos and Sad Peacocks" (2024)

What does a peacock colony in Berlin have to do with a herd of hippos on the Magdalena River in Colombia? Although they have been removed from their original habitat, these animals seem to feel at home in their new surroundings.

For Elkin Calderón Guevara and Johannes Förster, they nevertheless reflect the deeply human longing for power. Their film shows this new, "wild" life using spectacular still images and an accompanying commentary that combines didactic essay with realistic fable. It draws parallels between the Austro-Prussian colonial enterprise that led to the founding of Peacock Island in the 19th century and Pablo Escobar's drug empire that smuggled African hippos to Colombia (the password to his private zoo was nothing other than the cocaine formula developed by European scientists). As the whims of the powerful affect the animal kingdom in unpredictable ways, "About Happy Hippos and Sad Peacocks" even presents an unlikely dialogue between the pachyderms and a blue peacock - as if they had the last word in this strange shared history.