Amma Asante : 2018
Germany, 1944. 15-year old Leyna is German, born to a Caucasian mother and a black foreign fighter, whom she has never met. Her nightmare begins when she moves with her mother and little brother to the village where her relatives live. There, in Rüdesheim am Rhein, she experiences racism for the first time. Everyone calls her "the mongrel": her classmates, her teacher, even her uncle and aunt, and of course the SS patrols. Her mother has done her best to protect Leyna, but the racist credo of National Socialism has rendered her a pariah for the colour of her skin. Yet youthful ardour can bloom in the most unlikely places: Leyna is in love with Lutz, a member of the Hitler Youth – compulsory for all Aryan boys since 1936. Lutz toes the party line when it comes to antisemitism yet remains drawn to Leyna despite Nazi revulsion at the thought of a Black German. When that revulsion escalates to direct threat to her survival, Leyna and Lutz must face the seemingly inevitable outcome of their impossibly fraught romance. A coming-of-age story set in the most brutal of times. Amma Asante's feature premiered in Special Presentations at Toronto International Film Festival 2018.
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