An archival exploration of the biographical imagery and ideology of Peter Nestler’s Swedish grandfather, Count Eric von Rosen, an aristocrat with a serious interest in ethnology and anthropology. An embodiment of the colonial ‘adventurer’ of his time, Von Rosen undertook expeditions to South America and Africa (including the former Belgian Congo), turning a blind eye to the systematic decimation of the cultures he visited. At home in Sweden, he supported the Finnish counter-revolution and, later on, Nazism in Germany. “I had, long ago, discovered all these boxes with still photographs in the attic at Rockelstad, and while browsing through them I found images from the civil war in Finland, which I quickly became fascinated by, since no one had photographed the Reds who were later imprisoned and executed. He was a good photographer: his images of Indians were fantastic. Then came his involvement with Nazism in the early and mid-1930s. I always thought that this was a story that I had to tell some day. But at the same time, it was incredibly personal, and I pushed it away from me. I never really systematically dealt with these images. But then, when I found more articles he had written, I immediately understood that this was fantastic documentation, and then I made the film.” (Peter Nestler)
