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Poster for White Elephant
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Released
1984 · FILM

White Elephant

An amusing and well-founded semi-documentary about the resistance of the black continent to imperialistic technocrats

Directed by
Written by
Language
DE
ComedyDrama
Streaming on
  • Netflix

Synopsis

This film was made entirely in Ghana and consists of documentary scenes and a fictitious story about a British engineer who wants to import microchips to Africa. But the reaction of the blacks to his plans to build a fully automatic plastic furniture factory surprises him. His faith in technocracy stands opposed to what they know about the environment. When the conflict has reached its climax, a spell is cast upon him... finally, he gives up... but his attitude toward Africa has changed for the better.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 17

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Thomas SchwalmShot by Tom HurwitzScored by African Brothers

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