Sternberg chimed in in support Asante’s project and stated in an interview with Variety that, “I think something that [Asante] is the most fascinated by and thinks is the most profound is the intersection of identity and how it’s changed by our environments and our governments and by our peers and our families, and that was her intention with ‘Where Hands Touch.’ She spent time writing over the past 12 years and it’s her baby and her passion project…She always does what she does with a deep and open heart towards how she can portray identity and how through portraying identity throughout history, how she can draw comparisons and hopefully teach lessons about what’s happening now.”
Asante was truly grateful that Stenberg wanted to be a part of the project because she says that, “We lack a range of the experience of black people throughout history, let alone a story about someone who is biracial.”
And of course, Stenberg agrees, “People don’t really know that biracial children existed then. These biracial children where the children of French soldiers and German women who had fallen in love during World War I. Leyna, (Stenberg’s character), is a child who is walking a very dangerous tight rope. She is not living the Jewish experience. She is experiencing racism and persecution, which ends up leading to her being sent to a concentration camp where she lives an experience parallel to that of Romani people or disabled people or mentally ill people or outcasts — those who were not Jewish and were not sent to extermination camps, but were persecuted and forced to work…that’s where those biracial children were sent at that time.”
Although the project may be seen as controversial or glorifying the Nazi regime, for Stenberg and Asante, it goes deeper than that. What do you think? Will you see Stenberg’s newest big screen project?
