Germany, Cameroon 2026 — Directed by: Marc Sebastian Eils, Sylvie Njobat — min
The sacred statue Ngonnso, which represents the founder of the Nso people, was looted from Cameroon to Germany a hundred years ago during the German colonial period. It has been in the possession of the Ethnological Museum ever since, while Nso people have been asking for decades for its return. The film accompanies filmmaker and activist Sylvie Vernyuy Njobati in her fight for the restitution of the Ngonnso. With the hashtag #BringBackNgonnso, Sylvie is using social media to put public pressure on the German museum to return the statue. Sylvie is not interested in long negotiations, because time is working against her: Her grandfather's generation, which wants nothing more than the return of the Ngonnso, is getting older day by day. The film tells Sylvie’s personal story of how she became aware about Ngonnso through her grandfather and how she starts her campaign which then quickly turns her into the negotiation partner for museum officials. She experiences backlashes from German bureaucracy and from patriarchal structures within her own community and finally succeeds with her quest: last year, the museum decided to return Ngonnso back to the Nso people in Cameroon which is to happen until the end of this year.
