When Paul Came Over the Sea
Documentarian Jakob Preuss follows one migrant’s passionate and inexhaustible flight to freedom as he makes the journey from Cameroon to Berlin.
Paul Nkamani is a migrant from Cameroon. He has made his way across the Sahara to the Moroccan coast where he lives in a forest, waiting for the right moment to cross the Mediterranean Sea. This is where he meets Jakob, a filmmaker from Berlin, who is researching a film about Europe’s borders. Soon afterwards, Paul manages to cross over to Spain on an inflatable rubber boat. He survives – but half of his companions die on this tragic 50-hour odyssey. Because of the economic crisis in southern Europe, Paul decides to continue on to Germany, the former colonizing power in Cameroon and the country of his dreams. When Paul arrives in Jakob’s home country, Jakob must decide: will he play an active role in Paul’s pursuit of a better life, or remain the detached filmmaker?
