Synopsis
Düsseldorf, 2019. Nivedita Anand, a German graduate student with an
Indian father and a Polish mother, discovers that her celebrated Professor
of Postcolonial Studies, Saraswati, is in fact a white woman passing herself
off as a person of color. As Nivedita confronts this revelation, she is drawn
into a political and deeply personal storm that calls her relationships,
convictions, identity politics and sense of self into question.
Adapted from Mithu Sanyal’s bestselling novel Identitti (translated into
eight languages), the film examines questions of race, representation, and
inequality within a postcolonial academic framework. While engaging
seriously with these debates, the film uses irony and humor to expose
contradictions and power structures. This register is deliberately ruptured
when the narrative collides with real-world racist violence, most notably
the attacks in Hanau, grounding the discourse in lived consequences and
irreversible loss.
Drawing on her own background as the daughter of a German mother and a
Syrian father, director Randa Chahoud merges theory with emotion and
discourse with movement. The film features an almost all-female cast of
emerging actors and introduces, the pioneering female German rapper
Sabrina Setlur, who has Indian roots, in the role of Goddess Kali.
Director
Randa Chahoud is a German-Syrian filmmaker and graduate of the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB). Her English-language feature debut, THE ACCIDENTAL REBEL, premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2019 and went on to receive the Best New Actress Award and the Youth Jury Prize at the Max Ophüls Preis 2020, as well as the Best Director Award and Award of Excellence at the Catalina Film Festival (USA). In 2020, Screen Daily named her one of “Eight Emerging German Filmmakers to Watch.”
Alongside her cinema work, Chahoud has established an international reputation through visually distinctive television productions. Her credits include the Stanisław Lem adaptation Ijon Tichy: Raumpilot, the critically acclaimed Amazon Prime series Deutschland 89, for which she received a nomination for Best Director at the Deutscher Fernsehpreis in 2021 and the historical drama series Deutsches Haus, which launched globally on Disney+ and Hulu in November 2023 and earned nominations for the Critics Choice Award (Best Foreign Language Series, 2024) and the Deutscher Fernsehpreis (Best Drama Series, 2024). Most recently, she co-directed The Kollective (Hulu, TF2, RAI, ZDF), a political thriller series created alongside Assaf Bernstein (Fauda) for the showrunners of Gomorra, which had its US premiere in June 2025.
Credits
Cast:
Amanda Babaei Vieira – Nivedita Anand
Stephanie Eidt – Saraswati
Zoe Magdalena – Olouchi Schneider
Saba Lou Khan – Priti Dash
Sabrina Setlur – Kaali
Toni Fischer – Anne Müller
Amir Nawfal – Mohamed Kanj Khamis
Lotte Schüssler – Lotte Becker
Birgit Anand – Alexandra Finder
Jagdish Anand – Murali Perumal
Dr. Konstantin Thielmann – Niels Bormann
Paul Wickert – Sören Wunderlich
David Meus – Simon David Dressler
Crew:
Director: Randa Chahoud
Screenwriter: Friederike Jehn
Producers: Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul
Creative Producer: Flora Rumpler
Camera: Julian Hohndorf
Editor: Andrew Bird
Set Design: Juliane Friedrich
Choreography: Constanza Macras
Music: Burak Özdemir
Sound: Uli Frank
Production:
Razor Film, ZDF
In collaboration with::
Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, BKM, FFA, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, DFFF und Creative Europe MEDIA
Presse & Sales
Sales Company:
Alamode Filmdistribution
Festival & Awards
World Premiere:
Munich International Film Festival
Awards:
Randa Chahoud German Cinema New Talent Award – Director Nomination
Saba Lou Kahn German Cinema New Talent Award – Performance Nomination