English Language Cinema: The Sheep Detectives
FABRIC – A CUTTING-EDGE BUSINESS spans a range from the fabric markets in Lagos to the embroidery factories in Lustenau to the historical foundations of European prosperity. The film examines colonial trade entanglements through textiles and makes their lasting power relations visible.
At the center is the relationship between Nigerian journalist Ireti Bakare-Yusuf and former Vorarlberg export manager Marga rethe Bösch. Two women standing on different sides of a little-known but deeply embedded trade network in colonial structures. Nigeria does not only appear as a market, but as an active place of knowledge, trade, and creative capital, shaped by local actors like Ireti's mother, who worked in the textile trade for decades.
Starting from this perspective, FABRIC reveals the historical foundations of European wealth: linen fabrics from Austria, Switzerland, and Germany served in the 17th and 18th centuries as a central currency in the transatlantic trade with enslaved people. Cotton from the Southern states of the USA, produced through enslaved labor, became the so-called “white gold” of Europe. The history of global textile trade is thus also a history of exploitation, violence, and cultural reclaiming, whose structures are still effective today.
A 2025 / 88 min.; Subtitled
By: Anette Baldauf, Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, Chioma Onyenwe, Katharina Weingartner
Price: € 10.00
