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Society

Raising a daughter between two cultures

52:04

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August 30, 2025

Sarah, an Afro-German, wants Eduardo from Mozambique to fulfill his role as a father. Despite the distance and cultural differences that separate them. So, with her one-year-old daughter Luana, she travels from Berlin to Africa.

Until 1989, there were so-called "Madgermanes" in the GDR: contract workers from Africa who toiled in East Germany. Some of them started families there, like Eulidio. His daughter Sarah grew up with her mother Ingrid in Berlin. The relationship with her "second home" only gradually blossomed. Another tie came with Luana, Sarah's baby, whose father Eduardo also comes from Mozambique.
The memories of the Lubmin nuclear power plant are still fresh in Eulidio's mind. Today he fries chips in Springs, South Africa. Meanwhile for a long time, Sarah only knew her father from a photograph. She met him for the first time at the age of 11 and realized how comfortable she felt surrounded by people whose skin was as dark as hers. As an adult, she decides to spend some time in Mozambique - and meets Eduardo. Once back in Berlin, she realizes she is pregnant. 
Brenda Akele Jorde's documentary observation is dedicated to Sarah's attempt to bring together and continue threads that were broken in the wake of the fall of Communism. And it shows the challenges that go hand in hand with this. While Sarah is confronted with racism in Germany, she is considered German in Africa. While her father Eulidio was once expelled from the country after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is now Eduardo who only sees his daughter sporadically.

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