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SLATIN PASHA - ON HER MAJESTY'S SERVICE
Director(s):
Thomas MACHO – Writer(s): Thomas MACHO 
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His name is Rudolf Carl Slatin, born in 1857 in Vienna. But history remembers him as SLATIN PASHA.
This is the improbable and colourful life story of an Austrian hero, set in Habsburg Vienna, Victorian London and, particularly, among the warring tribes of the Sudanese Sahara. Today, his story is told by his daughter Anne-Marie and, above all, by his grandsons George and Alexander Galitzine in England.
George has accepted an ancient invitation to meet the heirs of the Mahdi and the Khalifa Abdullahi, his grandfather’s former gaolers. He travels to the Sudan, in his grandfather’s footsteps, to meet the descendants of those who played a role in his grandfather’s life. He is welcomed by the Imam Ahmed-Abd-er-Rahman-al-Mahdi, the grandson of the man who held Slatin Pasha captive for ten years. While Slatin, back in his days, witnessed the birth of the modern state of Sudan, his grandson George, today, observes first-hand the disintegration of Africa’s largest country and thus provides us with an insight into the largely unknown, present-day Sudan.
Invaluable photographs, historical material and artefacts from Rudolf Slatin’s sizeable estate contribute to make this film a vibrant portrait of late 19th century’s colonization of Africa – and a testimony to the Arab struggle for freedom and self determination.
“Slatin Pasha – On Her Majesty’s Service” is an epic human story set in a period of great changes - the dying days of great European monarchies and the struggles of immerging states, brought to us by the descendants of the story’s protagonists.