‘Deutschland 83’ Co-Creator Jörg Winger Says Audiences Are Now Ready For His Disney+ Show About East Germany’s First Black Policeman

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Jörg Winger and his Sam – A Saxon co-creator Tyron Ricketts believe the time is now right to tell the story of East Germany’s first Black policeman after a near-20-year period of shopping the project.

Disney+’s Sam – A Saxon, which was the streamer’s first German greenlight, spotlights Samuel Meffire, a former bricklayer who became the first elite East German policeman of African descent in the 1980s, where he went from diversity poster boy to being on the wrong side of the law.

Scroll down for a trailer of the series that launches April 26. Ricketts first met Meffire in 2002 and began shopping the project – initially as a feature – with Deutschland 83 co-creator Winger in 2006, but the pair believe German audiences have only become ready for the story in the past couple of years. “The answer from buyers when we pitched it back then was always ‘I find it fascinating but I don’t think our audiences are ready’,” said Winger. “The dominating discourse in Germany around diversity and racism was always the Holocaust and, while we never want to forget the Holocaust, it has sometimes overshadowed other aspects of diversity.

Today’s conversation is more holistic.” Winger worked with Ricketts on mid-noughties German cop show Leipzig Homicide, in which Ricketts played Germany’s first Black policeman on TV. “It’s very satisfying to see him 15 years later sell and a make a show based on a real-life Black German cop,” added Winger.