Dorothee Elmiger

Jan 6, 2025 | thebaffler.com | Dorothee Elmiger |Andrew Wilson |Tariq Kenney-Shawa

Now and then, I think of Walter Wippersberg’s Das Fest des Huhnes (The Festival of the Chicken), a satirical film about a team of sub-Saharan anthropologists traveling to Upper Austria to study the strange rites of the native population. These whites who gather in big tents, drink large amounts of yellow liquid, and flap their arms like wings when dancing—so the anthropologists conclude—seem to worship a new idol: the chicken.