DUMÉLA LADIES! (Hallo, good day, Ladies!) a film by Eva Heldmann 51 min, 8mm blowup to 16mm, D/Botswana 2002 [hi-res filmstills] | [deutsche Version] Directed, filmed and edited by: Eva Heldmann Sound design: [Hubert Machnik] Drums / Mbira: Myizer Matlhaku Duméla Ladies! arose from several trips to southern Africa. "Duméla Ladies!" - "Hallo, good day, Ladies!" I film with a Super 8 camera and a Bolex. Pleasure, curiousity, and discovery characterize the filming, and at the same time I am accompanied by my ideas of Africa that are characterized by "post card views” and postcolonial distorted images. Botswana is different than I expected. I go back every year to visit the friends I have made there. We talk about Aids, vengeance magic and the arts of healing. I watch the hair-dressers. The film tells of my experiences with the people and everyday life in Botswana. It is a declaration of love to my friends, their beauty and to the country. Jury statement on the honoring of the Hessian film prize 2002: "Duméla Ladies! – a greeting to the women of Botswana, in the language of the Setswana. Eva Heldmann approaches as a foreigner without denying her foreignness. Whereas television reports tend to demonstrate sovereignty and also authority, Eva Heldmann makes the approach to the unknown the theme of her work. F or example, for several minutes the language – incomprehensible for us – can be heard without translation. In this way, the foreign country retains its sound and is not "explained.” The voices and sounds of Botswana, its colors and forms, and mainly the faces of the women, whom the director encounters openly and often, with a sense of fascination, condense to a poetic film essay. In doing so, Eva Heldmann comes astoundingly close to the reality of the land and its inhabitants. Duméla Ladies! – in the end, a greeting to distant friends" Distribution: Heldmann Filmproduktion Awards: Hessischer Filmpreis 2002