Jörg Winger Set For His Disney+ Show About East Germany’s First Black Policeman

Sam — A Saxon | Courtesy of Disney

After nearly two decades of shopping the project, Jörg Winger and his co-creator Tyron Ricketts are finally bringing the story of East Germany's first black policeman to life. Sam – A Saxon, a seven-part series premiering on Disney+ on April 26, spotlights Samuel Meffire, a former bricklayer who became the first elite East German policeman of African descent in the 1980s.

Ricketts first met Meffire in 2002 and began shopping the project, initially as a feature, with Winger in 2006. However, the pair believes 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, he added.

The streaming revolution has moved German TV forward in terms of its "character-driven storytelling," according to Winger. Beyond diversity strides, he said that Disney's "spirit and search for originality" led to his team opting for the streamer over a broadcaster.

For Ricketts, "we are in a better position to tell the story" of Meffire since the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, which opened up a wider understanding of what racism means.

Sam – A Saxon takes a no-holds-barred look at racism in Germany and doesn't hold back with violence or use of language. The series shows how physically threatening it could be as a black person living in East Germany before the Wall fell.

The seven-parter follows Meffire on his relentless search for home and his fight for justice against an overpowering system, revealing both his childhood as an outsider shaped by the murder of his father, his meteoric rise as a symbolic figure and the media sensation of a new Germany, and his subsequent fall from grace.

The Afro-German community is much misunderstood, added Winger, who believes a broad audience can learn and put themselves "in the shoes of a Black character" by watching Sam – A Saxon. The show from Winger's Fremantle-backed Big Window Productions is co-created by Christoph Silber and stars Svenja Jung, Luise von Finckh, Nyamandi Adrian, Paula Essam, Ivy Quainoo, Thorsten Merten, Martin Brambach, Aristo Luis and Daniel Klareamong. Lead director is Soleen Yusef, and the director is Sarah Blaßkiewitz.

Greenlit in 2021, Winger said the show's production was subsequently hit by a "triple crisis of inflation, crew crunch and Covid-19." A breakthrough arrived when the team discovered Malick Bauer, who plays Sam, an actor who not only bears an uncanny resemblance to his subject but "lets the craft speak for itself."

Next up for Winger is Ouija, a supernatural coming-of-age thriller for France Télévisions and Starzplay.