Dreckfresser

Summary

Dirt for Dinner

"Dreckfresser" (2000) is Branwen Okpako’s graduation film from the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). It documents the rise and fall of Sam Meffire, the first Black police officer in the former East Germany. Son of a white mother and a Cameroonian student, he posed as "the Saxon" for an advertising campaign by the Sächsische Zeitung newspaper in the early 1990s, while Heinz Eggert, Saxony's Minister of the Interior at the time, liked to make public appearances with him. But Meffire resigned from the police force to set up a security firm and later turned to crime, with the Dresden Regional Court eventually sentencing him to nine years in jail in 1996.

"Dreckfresser" does not offer any explanations. It centres on the eloquent Sam Meffire, but the filmmaker also talks to his mother, former colleagues and people working in the media. Their perspectives vary, contradicting or reinforcing each other, which is one reason why the film triggered a lot of debate at certain festivals. "I'm not into documentaries that try to tell the truth. That's not possible because film is something that is made," commented the director at the 2001 Berlinale Forum.

Source: 72. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)