While ‘Afro-American’ is a common term, I’m not sure I came across ‘Afro-German’ before seeing this documentary, The Homes We Carry. And that is exactly director Brenda Akele Jorde’s point: Afro-Germans have been largely ignored and neglected.
Jorde is Afro-German herself, and although she doesn’t physically appear on screen, her presence is felt in the ease with which her subjects allow themselves to be filmed. Her central characters are Berlin-based Sarah Deichsel, born of a German mother and a Mozambican father who now lives in South Africa, and her young daughter Luana, also born of a Mozambican father who is still living in Mozambique.
That one sentence carries the weight of history.
When Sarah’s father, Eulidio Daniel Nhambiro, was a young man, he came to the GDR – a sister country to socialist Mozambique – as a contract worker. The Homes We Carry recalls that time with lively archive footage, a GDR punk song (Pankow’s 1983 song Rock ‘n Roll im Stadtpark) and personal photos from an album Eulidio cherished throughout thoseyears. Although they learned skills (like working at a nuclear power plant) which weren’t necessarily useful in Mozambique (which had no nuclear power plants), there is a sense of youthful adventure in these images.
Like other contract workers from Mozambique, Eulidio fell in love with a German girl – Sarah’s mother – and they had a child. But after the fall of the Wall, which happened as unexpectedly for them as for everyone else, the new, reunified Germany did not honour these GDR contracts. The 20,000 or so Mozambican workers were sent home without, they claim, having received their full wages and, more importantly, without the practical or financial possibility of seeing their children again – in some cases, they have lost contact completely. (Both fathers and children are being helped in their search by two organisations, Reencontro Familiar and Solibabys.)
Even now, these ‘Madgermanes’, as they are called, are demonstrating for their rights every Wednesday in the Mozambican capital. This provides Brenda Akele Jorde with her poignant opening image of a solemn former Mozambican contract worker, walking the streets of Maputo waving the flag of the GDR. Thirty years after the fall of Honecker, these men are still angry and, speaking both German and Portuguese, are still not being heard by German authorities.
That lack of recognition and representation is one major reason Brenda wanted to make this documentary, which is her feature debut and all the more impressive for being a student work, her master’s film project at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf.
But as interesting as it is, this is not the main focus of her film. That is how these wheels of history have effected Sarah’s identity. “It’s not the same when a white woman with straight hair tells you: ‘You are good as you are, I love you exactly as you are’, as when someone says it who has your hair, who also has dark skin, and who has similar experiences on the streets,” Sarah explains her loneliness growing up. As an Afro-German, she felt only half at home. And when she finally met her father for the first time, when she was eleven, “He wasn’t at all the man I thought he was.”
What exactly it was she expected, and how he was different, is not explained, but it might find an echo in the modest enthusiasm with which he now receives her and her child. There are more instances where the documentary doesn’t answer all the questions it raises. Like what political and legal avenues the Madgermanes pursued, for example, and what, if any, the official German response has been. Or how Sarah, as a young woman, also came to have a child by a father living in Mozambique, who would therefore also be mostly absent from his daughter’s life. Was that an accident? Or a conscious choice to have a child with a similar background to her own?
But these are not major criticisms of the film. Because they are ultimately not what the film is about. The Homes We Carry is about Sarah’s successful acceptance of her combined heritage, which the film conveys through the mellow and upbeat soundtrack by Mozambican singer Lenna Bahule. When Sarah came to Mozambique as a young person to do volunteer work for a year and a half, mostly to get to know the country, she initially tried very hard to adapt. “But I soon realised I do come from a different culture. I grew up somewhere else. My environment must accept that and I have to accept that as well.” A lesson painfully mirrored in what her father tells of his return from the GDR to Mozambique. Back home, those who had received training in the GDR were seen to have been given an unfair advantage. That is why, he explains, he could not find a job. And that is how he ended up in Springs, South Africa, selling fries – which Sarah and Luana can now enjoy.
Having been able to embrace her combined heritage, Sarah wishes for Luana to do the same – and at a younger age, so that she will hopefully have an easier time growing up. That is why she takes the adorable (and widely adored) child to Mozambique, to Sarah’s father, to Luana’s own father Eduardo (although Sarah is regularly exasperated with him) and to the rest of their families. So that Luana gets acquainted with the culture, smells and tastes of the country and will feel at home if, and when, she returns.
But, even more importantly, so that she will feel fully at home in Germany, with the knowledge of all of her roots. With Sarah as a shining example. Because however difficult and complicated Sarah’s story and situation may have been at times, she has certainly not been defeated by it.
Not at all. I would say that at the heart of this documentary is Sarah’s smile, which appears again and again in this easy-going, unhurried documentary. It demonstrates her self-assurance, her poise and her enjoyment of life. Showing her child that, as an Afro-German, “I am both and I can do both.”
Because they are not half. They are double.
Germany, 2022, 85 minutes
Director Brenda Akele Jorde
Co-directors Malte Wandel, David-Simon Groß
Production Film Five, in co-production with Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf
Producer Miriam Henze, Florian Schewe
Script Brenda Akele Jorde
Cinematography David-Simon Groß
Editing Laura Espinel
Sound design Jakob Mäsel
Sound Till Aldinger, Brenda Akele Jorde, André Estevão Bahule
Music Lenna Bahule
With Eulidio Daniel Nhambiro, Sarah Deichsel, Luana Deichsel, Eduardo Pinto Goenha
