Nowhere In Africa

synopsis

The Jewish family Redlich emigrates to Kenya in 1938, where Walter Redlich (Merab Ninidze), a lawyer, works on a farm as a caretaker. While his wife Jettel (Juliane Köhler), a daughter from a bourgeois home, finds it difficult to adjust to their new life, their shy daughter Regina (Lea Kurka/Karoline Eckertz) blossoms. She learns the local language and customs and finds a good friend in the cook Owuor (Sidede Onyulo). The loss of their home and relatives, as well as their inability to talk about this, endangers the marriage of Jettel and Walter. Only slowly do they find their way back to each other. When the war is finally over, Walter is offered a position as a judge in Frankfurt. But after all those years where they learned to cherish their life in Kenya, it is doubtful whether Jettel and Regina will accompany him back to Germany.