Reiss aus – Zwei Menschen. Zwei Jahre. Ein Traum (2019)

Reiss aus – Zwei Menschen. Zwei Jahre. Ein Traum: Directed by Lena Wendt. With Ulrich Stirnat, Lena Wendt, Fufu, Ziza. When Lena and Ulli start the engine of their old Land Rover, Lady Terés, they have a plan: to drive from Hamburg to South Africa in six months. What they don’t know yet is that they won’t ever get there. Two totally different characters, jammed together in two square meters of space for almost two years, they experience what it really means to travel: leaving your comfort zone for good. Starting in Morocco, they quickly dive into the life of locals they meet on the road: Jamal, a Moroccan Berber who lives with his dromedaries in the Sahara, Ziza, a Mauritanian musician who fights against suppression from the government, Mame Sy, a mother who set up a private school for the poorest of the poor in Mauritania – and many more. Their journey leads them through the vibrant green canyons of Guinea, the scorching heat of Mali, and the amazing surf of Sierra Leone and Liberia. Everywhere they are, the two Germans make contact with the locals and demonstrate that real travelling is about more than plain sightseeing. But their long journey doesn’t spare them the dark side of travelling: they are also confronted by corruption, sickness and even death. Setting out to discover a continent, their trip leads them down a very different road. One they did not expect: the journey to their true inner selves.

“To be honest I only watched up to the point that Lena began criticizing the Africans for being people of faith and putting her own atheistic values on them. They were ill prepared for this trip and apparently had not done any research on the cultures they would be going through. No, Africa is not like Hamburg… not even close. They should have know that.”