De wigwam

Ivens is thirteen years old when he shoots his first short film. Fascinated by Karl May's books, Ivens turns a story about good and bad Indians into a film. In revenge of the reprimand given to his daughter, the bad Indian, Black Eagle, kidnaps the youngest daughter of a farmer's family. The good Indian, Blazing Beam, goes after the kidnapper, shoots him, takes his scalp en brings the child back to her family. Afterwards, the family offers gifts to Blazing Beam and together they smoke the peace pipe. Ivens made use of a professional wooden Pathé handcamera from his father's shop. To Ivens, the availability of the camera was the reason to switch from 'playing Indian' to making a film about Indians. The copy shown was re-preserved from a nitrate copy of the Dutch Film Museum. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)