GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Lightbox is looking at love from all sides with five recent young films on 7+9+14 March 2023. $10 tickets on sale now. Watch the German-Senegalese comedy drama
Toubab with us on 9 March because...
"Laid back & very funny!" -- SPIEGEL
"An anti-racist buddy comedy" -- Stadtkulturmagazin Darmstadt
"Anyone who believes that the social ghetto film cannot be reinvented should watch this movie, which effortlessly adds a queer theme." -- epd Film
"Loud, funny & over the top" -- Frankfurter Rundschau
"TOUBAB has the potential to become a cult film. A thrillingly crafted surprise package with a damn cleverly told story." -- Indiekino
"A strong, multi-layered directorial debut" -- Hamburg:pur
"A declaration of love to life and friendship" -- film-rezensionen.de
"The director created a very entertaining, in equal measure political and profound narrative, which takes surprising turns and also makes us cry at the end. " -- First Steps award jury
Filmmaker Florian Dietrich explained how the idea for his debut film TOUBAB came about and how he found the lead actors:
"The idea for TOUBAB was born out of the encounters with young prisoners with whom we worked on theatre and art projects. Many of them had ended up in a juvie prison at age 15, 16. Some of them had deportation proceedings going on, even though they were born in Germany. There were participants who were actually deported to the countries whose passports they held. They had spent 16 years of their lives in Germany as Germans. And then they were deported -- to Angola or Turkey... Countries they might know from visiting family, but which they didn't consider home. This inconceivable injustice was the first impulse for us to tackle this topic.
Casting started with the search for Babtou. In a very long process, we met over 200 actors. At some point, it occurred to me that I knew Farba from my home area. I asked him if he would like to try. When he played the casting scene, everything suddenly became clear to me. That was the most important step for the film. Then we did constellation casting for Dennis' character. Julius Nitschkoff convinced us with his naturalness and his presence. The two of them were immediately like a unit, like a team."
image: c Camino Filmverleih 2021