Amma Asante made her feature debut with 2004’s “A Way of Life.” The film earned her the Most Promising Newcomer prize at the 2005 BAFTA Awards. She was also honored with the BFI London Film Festival’s inaugural Alfred Dunhill UK Film Talent Award, created to recognize the achievements of a new or emerging British writer-director. Asante’s other credits include “A United Kingdom” and “Belle.”
“Where Hands Touch” will begin screening at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9. It opens in select U.S. theaters September 14.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
AA: The film is set in during WWII in Berlin and is the coming-of-age story of a teenage girl, Leyna. Her mother is German and her father is an Afro-French soldier from Senegal who was, at one point, placed in Germany as part of the French occupation after the first World War.
The story traces the year that Leyna turns 16, as she comes of age in Berlin under Hitler’s rule — a period when all Jews and those that were not included in Hitler’s so-called “Aryan” vision for Germany had either been removed from Berlin to camps, murdered, or were in hiding.
It charts Leyna’s struggle for identity and survival in a world where she is very literally surrounded by white supremacy and utterly isolated from others who are Black or bi-racial like her.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
AA: This was supposed to be my second film, after my first, “A Way of Life.” Around about that time, it really hit me that I knew more about African-American history than I did the histories of those who were born and raised in Europe, but were of African descent, like me. I wanted to know more about the variety of histories that have resulted in many of the African diaspora being in Europe today.
How did they come to be living in the Netherlands, France, Germany? That was a question I asked myself, and I realized I didn’t have any real answers as to each country’s journey. I wanted to dig deeper, and as I did I came across a generation of children who were born in Nazi Germany that had been labeled “Rhineland Bastards.”
As I contemplated their existence, I imagined that theirs must have been as devastating an experience as that of Jewish Germans and Jews around Europe. Thinking about the struggles of African Americans in the U.S. during the same period also, I couldn’t imagine these Afro-German children not having existences that matched the very worst treatment of their country, as so many people of color in history had experienced.
But my assumptions were wrong to a large extent: Afro-German children were not exposed to Hitler’s killing machine en masse in the way the Jews were, and I learned that they often existed in life outside of camps — something that Jews simply could not openly do. [Many] Afro-Germans were, however, persecuted for their race, and did end up in labor camps. Others, while existing on the outside, had their citizenship removed.
Brutally, the Rhineland children were targeted by Hitler for sterilization, so that they could not procreate with Hitler’s Aryan population and would die out in one generation. They were, of course, forbidden from having relationships with Aryans, and most Afro-Germans were isolated from others like them unless they had Afro-German siblings or lived with the parent who was Black, which most Rhineland children did not. Effectively, then, Hitler was resigning them to a life of isolation, without intimate relationships, marriage, or love, because typically they did not have access to anyone of their own race.
And yet, these children were intrinsically interconnected with Aryan society: they went to school with Aryan children, and as young adults, eventually went into the work force with the Aryan population. [They were] exposed, throughout German culture, to the same Nazi rhetoric as Aryans because of Hitler’s ban on any elements of education or culture that challenged his hatred and rhetoric.
All this led to complex lives for Afro-German children. They were products of a time and a place that was not Africa, was not America, but was very specifically Hitler’s Germany. A time and place that had overlaps with other diaspora experiences, and at the same time, was very, very different. It was that specific time and that specific place that these children responded to — an experience that has never been explored or given voice on the big screen. This is what drew me to want to explore this story. How do you find identity when you are totally isolated from anyone like you? When you are Black and submerged in white supremacy?
So, as I understood it from my interviews and research with Afro-Germans who survived WWII in Germany, and scholars, Afro-Germans were persecuted but not mass-murdered. They were in society, but not fully allowed to partake in it. They were free, but if they met the wrong SS officer on the wrong day, could be thrown into a labor camp under the premise that it was to see out their national labor service — a service every German had to deliver as part of the war effort. Though, of course, obedient “Aryan” Germans, and/or National Socialist sympathizers — Nazis — did not serve theirs as prisoners in camps, but rather as soldiers, SS, and workers in factories, and other everyday jobs that provided support so that Germany could win the war.
So, at a time when personal identity was so tied to national identity, and every cultural, societal, and educational message taught children of the ideals of “the fatherland” — the pull to want to identify with country and flag and the majority, when you are the sole minority — was powerful.
The complexity of this predicament, and the ability that those who experienced it possessed to come through it, compelled me for well over a decade, until today. Here we are.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
AA: I want them to think about other voices, other experiences outside of their own, where there may be overlaps but also fundamental differences in approach and response. I want them to think about Black histories that have not been platformed in cinema and in particular, the various experiences of those taken from Africa and brought to Europe, who were products of that place and that time, and who responded not as we think we might, based on the dominant Black histories that we have been told about, but based on the much lesser-known, also rocky pathways that others had to navigate.
I want them to think about what persecution and the search for identity looks like when you are raised isolated from others that share your racial identity, but also when there is no other community in the same shoes for you to become part of.
For Leyna, without other people of color or Jewish people to ally herself with — because Jewish people had all been removed from Berlin by 1944 — the sense of isolation would have added to her predicament and responses. So I would love for audiences to think about those who live in relative isolation today and are dealing with marginalization, those who deal with the challenges of asserting their identity, but without a community of their own to do it from.
There are issues of citizenship and personal power that I’d like audiences to think about, too. What happens when you are not a hero? Is there really ever an option to do nothing? [I want people to consider] the role of women in war, and the misuse of national identity to instill and propel hatred.
The film looks at the formal use of education — school and Hitler Youth, but also language — to teach children hatred. That was a way of life in 1944 Berlin. But in what informal ways are we teaching children to marginalize others today through use of language, normalizing the abnormal? Language was first used on the Jewish people to dehumanize [them] and lay the groundwork for what was to come. The abnormal became the normal and became acceptable.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
AA: The scenes in the camp were the biggest challenge. Contemplating the realities for those who went through and died because of such experiences. Every day was emotional.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
AA: We are an independent British film. We were funded through financiers in the UK and in Belgium. We approached one financier at a time until we had our budget. It took over 10 years. Our financing collapsed twice, including a few weeks into pre-production. A new funder stepped in to make up the difference, and we were able to continue making the film.
Once finished, we sold to Sony Worldwide, who picked up the film for the rest of the world’s distribution, and to Vertical Entertainment for U.S. distribution.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
AA: The work of filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Julie Dash, and Ken Loach. The writings of James Baldwin, Jane Austen, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison. The fashion design of Coco Chanel and Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen. The film scores of Terence Blanchard, John Williams, and Ennio Morricone. The art of Banksy, and the art of Harlem Renaissance artists such as Augusta Savage.
Life, the human condition, and humanity.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
AA: Best: “Grow a thick skin.” And I did.
Worst: “Stay in your lane.”
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
AA: Remember that your stories have value and you have a right to pursue having them told. Many will tell you, or imply through their actions, that you don’t have the right. It’s something we, society, tend to do to women in subtle ways: challenge them by telling them they are wrong or not good enough. But “right” and “good enough” essentially have been defined by one section of the world’s demographic, and sold to society collectively as “the norm.”
As a female director, don’t be afraid to challenge those voices or expectations that say you cannot — your greatest asset is in exploring life as you see it, through your unique gaze.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
AA: I have two: “Daughters of the Dust” by Julie Dash and “Yentl” by Barbra Streisand. They are both sweeping epic pieces that show the power and sensibility of each director as she wields her skill behind the camera.
W&H: Hollywood and the global film industry are in the midst of undergoing a major transformation. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
AA: I have, clearly, noticed that women’s voices have been amplified through the movements and there are definitely those who are taking note and acting on what has been learned and heard.
From a personal perspective, I have found myself in rooms and having conversations about projects I’m pretty sure I would never have been thought of for without the strong message of #TimesUp and #MeToo: women have a value that must be recognized.
As you say, we are still undergoing that transformation, so we still have a ways to go — but this is a start. I am grateful to these movements for supporting women who have actively been confronted with harassment and violence, and for supporting the lives of those like me: women in the workplace in general.
https://youtu.be/aNMUxqi7rh0
