Isaach De Bankolé as Otomo	Eva Mattes as Gisela
Barnaby Metschurat as Rolf	Hanno Friedrich as Heinz
Director: Frieder Schlaich

This fictionalized account of a day in the real life of Frederick Otomo is disturbingly authentic. In 1989, Otomo was a refugee from Cameroon living in Stuttgart. In spite of being young, healthy, and persistent, he has been unable to find gainful employment in the eight years he has been in Germany. On this day, he is taking the trolley to the job office when the conductor questions his ticket. He insists the ticket is valid and when pushed, pushes back. A confrontation ensues and Otomo flees the scene when the police are called. The remainder of the film follows him through the rest of this day to its tragic conclusion.

Filmmaker Freider Schlaich imagines the events and discourse likely to have occurred. These revolve around the two scenarios of Otomo and of the two young police officers assigned to search the area and bring him in. Rolf is distracted by other things such as his music and not really interested in the pursuit. Heinz is a cop bent on doing a good and fair job. He reproaches the other cops in the station when they join the trolley conductor in mocking the absent African while they go through the things in the duffel left behind when he fled. He sees that Otomo must be a complex man by the things he finds.

Meanwhile, Otomo (Isaach De Bankolé) is desperate to get out of town. It is clear that although he encounters some friendly faces and kindness, he knows from cruel history that he will be regarded with suspicion by virtue of his race and background. He cannot go back to the meager apartment where he has been living with funds from the local church charity. The police will be waiting. He sees a group of long distance trucks and tries to stowaway. The driver says he will take him across the border to Holland for 400 marks. Otomo sets out to obtain the money. He encounters a lonely woman with her granddaughter by the river. He persuades her to get the money from him.

As they develop a remarkably comfortable alliance, the two cops are on his trail. The terrible conclusion of the day seems all too evident and we ache with its seeming inevitability. The barriers that Otomo faces go far beyond those that could be overcome by simply facing the charge of a minor bus altercation. The reason the dispute arose initially was motivated by larger and more insidious malevolence. Otomo was a gentle man by all accounts but the hindrances against living free were simply too great and not of his making. Issach De Bankole, previously seen in Ghost Dog and A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries and gives an eerily unclouded performance that conveys the intricacy, simplicity and futility of the reality he encounters.