The scenes in a labor camp, within sight of another camp where Jews are being sent to death chambers, are visually familiar from decades of World War II movies. TWITTER Parents need to know that Where Hands Touch is a drama about a multiracial German girl (Amandla Stenberg) during World War II who becomes a target of Nazi aggression yet falls in love with a young Nazi soldier (George MacKay). A rites of passage story of a bi-racial teen struggling for survival in Nazi Germany. This review was filed from the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10th, 2018. In a pivotal episode, Lutz borrows a Billie Holiday record from his father's secret collection, and for a few moments, behind the curtains of Lutz's house — in a very discreet sex scene — they block out a world whose dangers, they realize all too well, are encroaching on them. Director: Amma Asante This is a vision that I held in my mind for well over a decade. A rites of passage story of a bi-racial teen struggling for survival in Nazi Germany. Where Hands Touch begins in Germany in 1944. While “Where Hands Touch” demonstrates confident filmmaking from a technical standpoint, Asante’s plot choices around the ambiguous development of Lutz feel irresponsible, especially during these risky political times that uncompromisingly demand us to be the opposite. Amandla Stenberg’s upcoming film “Where Hands Touch,” which is set during the Holocaust, has raised many eyebrows ahead of its release. When Lutz accidentally runs into Leyna with his bicycle, he is wearing his Hitler Youth uniform, but is profusely apologetic and obviously drawn to her. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER is a registered trademark of The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. When early stills from the film emerged online, Asante had to face down accusations that she was romanticizing Nazis. The coming-of-age story takes place in Germany in 1944 where 15-year-old Leyna (Stenberg), daughter of a white German mother and a black father, lives in fear due to the color of her skin. Tráiler Oficial Subtitulado De Where Hands Touch (2018)Alemania, 1944. There's no denying that there are too many coincidences in the drama, as characters turn up with unlikely convenience at certain times and places. Where Hands Touch is a 2018 British-Belgian-Canadian-Irish romantic war drama film directed and written by Amma Asante and starring Amandla Stenberg, George MacKay, Abbie Cornish, Christopher Eccleston, and Tom Sweet. Screenwriter: Amma Asante Editor: Steve Singleton They become bound by the realisation of the horrors being committed around them. Director of photography: Remi Adefarasin Christopher Eccleston does a lot with the underwritten role of Lutz's father. Where Hands Touch (2018) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. See the release date and trailer. MacKay plays the conflicted character without leaning too far toward sympathy or villainy. Trailer JustWatch. Where Hands Touch ; Where to watch. Asante never loses sight of the issues Lutz faces. Yet Asante depicts them with such matter-of-factness and lucidity — the guards' random cruelty, the hunger and sickness, the ashes floating down from the nearby camp — that the episodes feel devastating all over again. The more subterranean question is whether he sees Leyna as some exotic exception to the rule. Where Hands Touch (2018). Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentation). YOUTUBE. Can he look beyond the bigoted assumptions passed down to him? Germany 1944: 15-year old Leyna (Amandla Stenberg), daughter of a white German mother and a black father, lives in fear due to the color of her skin. The scene is shocking in its quick brutality. When the daughter of a white German mother and an African father meets a member of the Hitler Youth - compulsory for all Aryan boys in 1944 Germany, they must battle against the fates laid out before them during the most brutal of times. If only her film wasn’t miscalculated with muddled priorities. With “Where Hands Touch,” Asante unintentionally yet awkwardly juxtaposes a tragic sidebar of World War II and its central crimes against humanity to the genocide of the Jewish population in the Holocaust, with regrettable consequences. This unrealistic characterization gives her mother Kerstin the opportunity to pay occasional lip service to the honorable ideals against Hitler’s Aryan regime. Where Hands Touch still manages to be a well-acted historical drama that depicts World War II from a different point of view. Where Hands Touch still manages to be a well-acted historical drama that depicts World War II from a different point of view. Where Hands Touch. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to RogerEbert.com, Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets. Music: Anne Chmelewsky I thought Life is Beautiful was overrated. In her most ambitious film yet, Amma Asante once more uses interracial relationships to bring an underexplored corner of history to life. And some of the dialogue is blunt. As in many Holocaust stories, violence is … Lutz and Leyna gather in secret, listen to Billie Holiday records, and so on. Germany 1944: 15-year old Leyna (Amandla Stenberg), daughter of a white German mother and a black African father meets Lutz (George MacKay), a member of the Hitler Youth - compulsory for all Aryan boys since 1936. FACEBOOK 1 VIDEO | 19 IMAGES. for thematic elements, violence/disturbing images, sexuality and language. Producer: Charlie Hanson by Terms of Use | But here's the thing: all that seems possible without the romantic entanglement of Leyna with a Nazi boy. Germany 1944: 15-year old Leyna (Amandla Stenberg), daughter of a white German mother and a black father, lives in fear due to the color of her skin. Asante offers a similar predicament in “Where Hands Touch,” a World War 2 drama about a secret affair between a black German teenager and a member of the Hitler Youth, but her themes of … There, Leyna accidentally meets and slowly falls in love with Lutz (George MacKay, leaving an impression with a tricky part), a member of Hitler Youth, raised by a single father from the Nazi party. Lutz asks his father. Throughout, Asante raises questions about bravery, conscience and, most of all, identity. In the more recent, gentle historical drama “A United Kingdom” (adapted by Guy Hibbert from Susan Williams’ book), she put forth a thoughtful chronicle of the controversial interracial marriage of a white British woman and the Botswana King, Seretse Khama as they overcame the expected and unforeseen social hurdles standing in the way of their union. All rights reserved. Costume designer: Pam Downe Hannah Arendt - Kanopy. Her screenplay is inspired by historical research about black and biracial Germans, although the characters are fictional. Where Hands Touch, an eloquent, sweeping film about a young biracial woman in Nazi Germany, follows the effective approach Asante used in the sumptuously filmed Belle (2013), about a biracial woman raised by aristocrats in 18th-century England, and A United Kingdom (2016), based on a real-life romance between an African prince and a white Englishwoman. Nomadland, I May Destroy You Take Top Honors at 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards, It's Alive! Search for screenings / showtimes and book tickets for Where Hands Touch. AdChoices But when a Nazi officer orders the sterilization of Leyna and confiscates her legal papers during a bracing inspection visit in 1944, Kerstin decides to move her family to Berlin, where they could keep their heads low and live in safety, at least temporarily. Production companies:Tantrum Films Ltd., Umedia Which is too bad, because actor-turned-director Asante has an immensely sensitive touch in bringing multifaceted period yarns of intersectional identities to life. | California Privacy Rights Panic engulfs a … Leyna insistently considers herself German, but we first see her in 1944, hiding under the floorboards of her own house as Nazis search for her so she can be sterilized (Hitler's way of preventing black people from adding to the population). While her horrors deeply scar the viewer, knowing but not seeing the dread on the other side of the fence leaves a sore trace, dangerously close to offensive “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” territory. | EU Privacy Preferences. EMAIL ME Inspired by a true story in a script by Misan Sagay, her “Belle” perceptively portrayed a young biracial woman born into white aristocracy in 18th-Century England, cleverly turning the traditional costume drama up on its head. Distributor: Vertical Entertainment Howards End (1992) - Kanopy. And Stenberg has gradually taken Leyna from a hopeful girl in braids to a determined woman with a shaved head, struggling to stay alive. Synopsis. Casting: Tony Whale TIFF is a charitable cultural organization with a mission to transform the way people see the world, through film. 12. Where Hands Touch is just as elegantly made, but it tackles an even broader swath of history, and despite a tilt toward melodrama is even more wrenching in its emotional impact. We're told too little about the Nazi with a secret Billie Holiday stash. When she meets Lutz (MacKay), the son of a prominent SS officer, the two fall helplessly in love, putting both their lives at risk. Little Dorrit - Pluto, Plex. As history itself turns darker, so does the film, which may briefly seem as mawkish as its title, but which becomes a tough-minded story of labor-camp survival. An Eternal Gem - Where Hands Touch arthur_tafero 14 September 2019. Starring Amandla Stenberg, George MacKay, Abbie Cornish, Christopher Eccleston and Tom Sweet. Asante engages with Leyna’s race and her in-between, socially disadvantaged status insightfully, yet she also frustratingly paints her as a naïve girl, not fully aware of the extent of the terror running amok on in Hitler’s Germany. Directed by Amma Asante. Overlooked historic facts can be cinematic gold, especially when met with noble intentions. Where Hands Touch is just as elegantly made, but it tackles an even broader swath of history, and despite a tilt toward melodrama is even more … (340) IMDb 6.3 2 h 2 min 2019. The film centers on Leyna (a remarkable Amandla Stenberg, courageous and fragile in equal measure), a biracial young girl who quietly lives with her protective and idealist mother Kerstin (Abbie Cornish, surprisingly forgettable) and her young brother in the countryside. Germany, 1944. Steve Singleton's fluid editing never calls attention to itself, but allows viewers to sink into the film's world. 2018 Directed by Amma Asante. Schindler's List is very good; as was Seven Beauties by Wertmuller. Where Hands Touch, which comes to theaters on Sept. 14, was both written and directed by Amma Asante, who notably directed the film Belle.In an … Where Leyna's place in society has always been fraught, Lutz's has been too comfortable. Woman in Gold - Roku, Tubi, Pluto. Those charges couldn't be further from the reality of this thoughtful film, whose questions about bigotry, and about passion and compassion, resonate viscerally today. WHERE HANDS TOUCH Official Trailer (2018) Abbie Cornish, Amandla Stenberg Movie HDSubscribe to Rapid Trailer For All The Latest Movie Trailers! : On the Many Faces of Frankenstein, Shadow and Bone Sets Itself Apart from the YA Pack with Welcome Restraint, Geena Davis and Wendy Guerrero Preview the 2021 Bentonville Film Festival, Running August 3-8. Privacy Policy | Before long Leyna watches from a short distance as Nazi soldiers shoot someone she knows, on an active street in daylight. Period yarns of intersectional identities to life had to face down accusations she! Question is whether he sees Leyna as some exotic exception to the rule the horrors being around... Has always been fraught, Lutz 's has been too comfortable, Vudu,! This is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York secret Holiday! 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