Black Eagles
Documentary, Germany, 2021, 102min.
Director: Torsten Körner
Through individual trajectories, a collective memory emerges, shaped by resilience and belonging. The film restores a voice to those whose stories have too often been told by others, revealing the quiet strength of paths long rendered invisible.
Poster "Schwarze Adler" | © Broadview Pictures
Patrick Owomoyela. Still from "Schwarze Adler" | © Broadview Pictures
Shary Reeves. Still from "Schwarze Adler" | © Broadview Pictures
Gerald Asamoah. Still from "Schwarze Adler" | © Broadview Pictures
Jimmy Hartwig. Still from "Schwarze Adler" | © Broadview Pictures
When the German national soccer team takes to the field, the national anthem plays and the cameras study the faces before kickoff, it goes without saying that the players we root for in front of our screens at home today have widely differing biographies. They are united by their pride in playing for Germany and competing against the best in the world. Their heraldic animal is the black eagle they wear on their jerseys. But the eagle, which today suggests unity, also had an exclusionary message for a long time, because the German soccer hero was thought of, dreamed of and worshipped as white.
The feature-length documentary Black Eagles lets black players of the German national soccer team tell their personal stories. What road did they travel before they got to where we cheer for them? What obstacles did they have to overcome? What prejudices and hostility did they face – and what was it like in the past, what is it like today? Accompanied by rarely shown archive images, which are sometimes as unexpected as they are disturbing, director Torsten Körner lets various generations of players have their say in his film. From Erwin Kostedde, who in 1974 was the first black player to make his debut in the national team, to Jimmy Hartwig and Steffi Jones, from Gerald Asamoah to Patrick Owomoyela and Cacau to Jean-Manuel Mbom: in Black Eagles, black national soccer players describe their experiences on and off the field. Whether it's them or their comrades in the Bundesliga like Anthony Baffoe, Otto Addo, Shary Reeves, Guy Acolatse and Jordan Torunarigha: their stories not only reveal what it means to be the target of racist hostility in front of thousands of people in the stadium and millions watching on TV. They also shed light on how spectators, the media and German society deal with the issue of racism - and how, slowly, from today's perspective, something has changed about this way of dealing in recent decades.
Thus Black Eagles is much more than the story of Germany's No. 1 national sport and some of its protagonists. At a time when the whole world is in turmoil, it is our story – the story of a country that is far from having arrived where it thought it had been years ago.
In recent years, director Torsten Körner has presented documentaries such as Angela Merkel: The Unexpected and 3 Days in September. The film was shot by Johannes Imdahl (Kroos, Nowitzki). Black Eagles is a production of BROADVIEW Pictures. Creative Producer was Peter Wolf (Kroos, Resistance Fighters, Nowitzki), Franziska Rempe was responsible for researching the archive material. The film was produced by Emmy award winner Leopold Hoesch (Kroos, Nowitzki, Klitschko, Angela Merkel: The Unexpected).
