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100 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 6 2o20 (Travel) Anna Karina Sennefelder | Revival of the cultural stereotype? sentence in question, “The people in this part of the world have a great aura” had appeared as a caption under the three pictures in a book, it may be expected that readers would respond with astonishment or indignation. In the documentary film, the multimodal interplay conveys spontaneity and, above all, the narrators’ well-intentioned curious innocence. However, behind this short sequence there are many individual production steps that, although no longer visible, must be considered when assessing a multimodal conveyed stereotype. During the recording, selection, montage, post-synchronization of the film music and, above all, the scripting of the VO, the producers should have been able to notice that they were about to reproduce an orien- talist stereotype. The fact that the stereotype of the “great aura” has remained in the finished film supports my thesis that certain attributions of cultural identity are not perceived as stereotypes, even by travellers who endeavour to meet the world openly. The attribution of cultural identity by oth- ers is so deeply ingrained in the genre of the travel documentary that even controversial images such as the orientalist stereotype discussed here are still communicated in the twenty-first cen- tury. As indicated, this may be due, at least in part, to the specific effect of the medium, because the text-image relationship is more ‘multimodal’ than, for example, in a travelogue with photos. In film, the ‘text’ consists of numerous elements, such as sound quality, intonation, speaking rate, film music and the montage of the images shown. In particular, however, the reproduc- tion of the orientalist stereotype is probably due to the basic mechanism of documentary itself, which aims to counter the media mainstream with something supposedly ‘authentic’; for this ‘good cause’, it is easily blinded to its own blind spots, and therefore fights stereotypes with stereotypes. Reiss aus. A travel documentary that aims to show the downsides of travel but still exoticizes The sequence discussed here is found relatively early in the 120-minute-long film. Wendt and Stirnat are in Mauritania, where they meet “the greatest people from the first day onwards” (Wendt and Stirnat 2019a: 10:25–10:29). The difficulties they encounter crossing desert sections of the Sahara with their Land Rover have also been a topic of discussion up to this point of the film, as well as the fundamentally difficult “communication between men and women” (Wendt and Stirnat 2019a: 14:03–14:07). Wendt reported on the latter in a vlog-typical setting: in a self-recorded, frontal close-up, in which current events are monologically commented upon and summarized, often in a quiet or whispering tone that recreates the intimacy of a diary entry. The central travel motive is also clearly communicated at this stage: “Being free, gaining distance, finding oneself again” (Wendt and Stirnat 2019a: 1:55). The establishing shot of the sequence I will analyse here is a close-up of naked black feet on a colourful carpet, against the sounds of singing, laughing and clapping hands [see Fig. 4]. The shot cuts to a close-up of drumming black hands, then to a close-up from a low angle of the head and shoulders of a young girl dancing. Next, Wendt is shown in a head and shoulders close-up, wearing a peaked cap and a scarf that resembles a kufiya, and playing a clapping game with another girl wrapped in a colourful scarf [see Fig. 5]. In the background, next to Wendt, another young white woman is showing the chil- dren standing around her something on her smartphone, something which, significantly,