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| Two intimate photographs make up the major part of this poster for Caroline Link's Nowhere in Africa |
A Jewish lawyer flees out of Germany to Kenya with his family shortly before Kristallnacht, and in the foreign African country they are made responsible for a small farm, while the situation worsens for their kin left behind in Germany.
Nowhere in Africa is written and directed by great German filmmaker Caroline Link (Sommertage (1990)), adapting the same-titled, autobiographical 1995 novel by Stefanie Zweig (Irgendwo in Deutschland (1996)).
The Jewish family, - and not least the mother and wife, portrayed in a central, fantastically human and strong performance by Juliane Köhler (The Whole Shebang/Alles Inklusive (2014)), - are very German, and their culture clash with the Kenyans is skillfully utilized. The film shows how differing cultures can coexist peacefully, - but not without each making their mark on the other.
Nowhere in Africa is handsomely produced and thoroughly well-made and well-acted. It insists that life for the persecuted Jews abroad wasn't all misery but that it also entailed new relations and love. Obviously many more difficulties for the family came after the film ends, as they ventured back home.
It is a valuable and very worthwhile grand film about being on the run, losing one's country, to be a refugee, - SPOILER with a very powerful climactic scene during an invasion of locusts, which with mythical precision seems to show the affectingly bared, vulnerable situation that the family find themselves in.
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Cost: 7 mil. €, approximately 7.9 mil. $
Box office: 24.3 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 3.07 times its cost)
[Nowhere in Africa was released 27 December (Germany) and runs 141 minutes. Shooting took place from January - April 2001 in Kenya and Germany. The film had a slow release that continued into 2004. It opened #71 to a 22k $ weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #18 and in 78 theaters (different weeks), grossing 6.1 mil. $ (25.1 % of the total gross). The film's biggest market was its production country Germany with 10.2 mil. $ (42 %). North America was the 2nd biggest, and Spain was 3rd with 2.3 mil. $ (9.5 %). The film won the Best Foreign Film Oscar. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe and won 5/6 German Film award nominations. Link returned with A Year Ago in Winter/Im Winter ein Jahr (2008). Köhler returned in My First Miracle/Mein Erstes Wunder (2002). Nowhere in Africa is certified fresh at 85 % with a 7.51/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Nowhere in Africa?
