Introduction by Enoka Ayemba

Branwen Okpako’s Dreckfresser 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 1990s, while Heinz Eggert, Saxony’s Minister of the Interior, liked to join him for public appearances. Yet later Meffire would resign from the police force to set up a security firm before turning to crime, with the Dresden Regional Court eventually sentencing him to nine years in jail in 1996. Dreckfresser does not offer explanations. It centers on the eloquent Sam Meffire, but the filmmaker also talks to his mother, former colleagues and journalists. Their perspectives vary, contradicting or reinforcing each other, which is one reason why the film has triggered a lot of debate. The director himself has leaned into this ambiguity “I’m not into documentaries that try to tell the truth,”Okpako stated at the 2001 Berlinale Forum, “That’s not possible because film is something that is made.” (EA)