Yesterday was the German premiere of ‘star biz’ a documentary film produced as part of the project import-export. The film uses mercedes as a tool to examine the process of cultural appropriation of western consumer and luxury goods in India. The film gives an surprisingly unfiltered insight into the corporate culture of Daimler Chrysler. The interviews with Daimler Chrysler managers among them CEO Hans-Michael Huber reveal a fair amount of arrogance and narrow mindedness among these ‘ambassadors of indo german globalisation’ (quote from the article about the film in the import export publication).

At the same time the swabian accents and the insitance on provincial german lifestyles among the ‘mercedes family’ members make these interview extremely hilarious to watch. The film contrasts the Mercedes family with the bollywood empire of star producer Ravi Chopra and features lots of footage of ‘merc’ driving Bollywood heros and villans.

Star biz is available (with German and English subtitles) on dvd as part of the publication ‘cultural transfer – import export – india, germany, austria’.