Becoming Black (2019)
Overview
In the 1960s, a white couple living in East Germany tells their dark-skinned child that her skin color is merely a coincidence. As a teenager, she accidentally discovers the truth. Years before, a group of African men came to study in a village nearby. Sigrid, an East German woman, fell in love with Lucien from Togo and became pregnant. But she was already married to Armin. The child is Togolese-East German filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. In interviews with Armin and others from her childhood years, she tracks the astonishing strategies of denial her parents, striving for normality, developed following her birth. What sounds like fieldwork about social dislocation becomes an autobiographical essay film and a reflection on themes such as identity, social norms and family ties, viewed from a very personal perspective.
Top Cast
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Ines Johnson-Spain
Self
A
Armin Gundermann
Self
M
Madeleine Papangou Johnson
Self
G
Germaine Papangou Johnson
Self
G
Geneviève Papangou Johnson
Self
I
Irène Papangou Johnson
Self
C
Christel Anders
Self
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Werner Anders
Self
R
Rosi Judisch
Self
C
Christophe Kuessi Johnson
Self
M
Michael Gundermann
Self
R
Raymond Johnson
Self
P
Perpétue Johnson
Self
A
Asiaba Johnson
Self
G
Gisela Mwaungulu
Self
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