Film Screening 16th October, 2003

Poster for Nowhere in Africa

Nowhere in Africa 

8:00 PM, 16th October, 2003

  • MA
  • 141 mins
  • 2001
  • Caroline Link
  • Caroline Link
  • Juliane Kohler, Merab Ninidze, Sidede Onyulo, Matthias Habich

Based on the best-selling autobiographical novel by Stefanie Zweig, Nowhere in Africa tells the story of a middle-class Jewish family who flees Germany in 1938 (just before Jews were denied exit visas) for a remote farm in Kenya. Walter Redlich is an attorney who takes a job as a poorly paid caretaker on an English cattle ranch. His wife, Jettel, angrily resents leaving her home in Frankfurt and disbelieves Walter's dire predictions of the fate of German Jewry. Their five year old daughter, Regina, embraces her new environment and its people, and forms a special bond with Owuor, the Masai cook. When World War II begins, the British authorities intern German nationals in Kenya, but Walter convinces the colonialists that he is not a Nazi supporter and the family is released. Walter joins the army and fights with the Allies. Letters arrive with news of family members deported to death camps. When the war ends, it is Jettel who does not want to return to Germany, considering it a place where her family's murderers are still at large, though Walter is keen to participate in Germany's reconstruction. Filmed on location, Nowhere in Africa won the Oscar this year for best foreign language film.

Tony Fidanza