The Black Man Has A Name

For 88 years, the body of a man stood behind glass in a small-town Spanish museum. Dissected, taxidermied, and labelled simply "Bushman," he had been stripped of everything that made him a person. His name, his origins, his people — all erased by the colonial machinery that brought him there.

Director Fèlix Colomer set out to give that back to him. Travelling to Botswana and South Africa, he pieces together a century-spanning story through rigorous archival research and encounters with living descendants, ultimately identifying the man as Molawa VIII of the Litaku tribe.

The film moves with the urgency of an investigative thriller. It traces the colonial violence that displaced Molawa VIII from his homeland, follows the long controversy over his display, and arrives at a moment of reckoning when, in 1991, public outrage over his continued exhibition threatened to cast a shadow over the Barcelona Olympics.

This is a documentary about historical reparation, but it is also something more intimate. It asks what is owed to the forgotten, and whether dignity can be restored after decades of erasure. Written by Víctor Colomer and produced by 3Cat and Producciones del K.O., the film is a Catalan-language production from Spain.