alr

Toxi

Screening on Film
Directed by Robert A. Stemmle.
With Elfie Fiegert, Paul Bildt, Johanna Hofer.
West Germany, 1952, 35mm, black & white, 88 min.
German with English subtitles.

A well-to-do Hamburg family finds a five-year-old girl abandoned at the door of its villa. Toxi is black, the daughter of a now deceased German girl and an American G.I. who has returned to the States. Director Robert A. Stemmle effectively details then-current attitudes toward interracial relationships and multi-racial children, presenting German positions on race and racism with remarkable honesty and candor. Just as young Toxi has worked her way into the hearts of this German family, a resolution of sorts appears: her American father returns, hoping to take Toxi with him back to the States. The film premiered at the moment when the first generation of children created by liaisons between German women and American soldiers—many of whom were African American—began entering German schools, creating a public awareness of this situation.

Part of film series

Read more

After the War/Before the Wall: German Film 1945–1960

Other film series with this film

Read more

Black and White on Screen

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

Read more
a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil

Read more
Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

Carol for Another Christmas

Read more

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy