Ulrich Kohler's "Gavagai" asks who is allowed to act in a racist moment

Paris – 19/07/2026: In a few days, a film will open in French cinemas whose decisive tension comes not from a crime, but from the hesitation that follows. Ulrich Kohler’s “Gavagai, et autres malentendus” tells of a racist incident surrounding a film premiere in Berlin. At its center is the question of what the right response is when humility, anger, protective instinct and helplessness are all present at the same time.

The story begins during the filming of a modern adaptation of “Medea” in Senegal. There, actress Maja and her colleague Nourou grow closer. Months later, they see each other again at the premiere of their film in Berlin. A racist incident outside the festival hotel throws their already fragile relationship off balance and turns personal wounds into a public test.

Kohler, who also wrote the screenplay, therefore does not shift the conflict into an abstract debate. He shows people who want to talk but end up talking past each other because of their respective experiences. Nourou is confronted with the assault; Maja wants to stand by him. Yet this very impulse, the constellation suggests, can itself become a burden when the person affected no longer determines how their experience is named and processed.

The title refers to a philosophical thought experiment by U.S. philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine: language remains uncertain without a shared context. In the film, this does not become a thesis, but a demand placed on the characters. Good intentions are not automatically enough. A determined intervention by a white observer can demonstrate solidarity. But anyone who prematurely takes control of the interpretation can drown out the voice of the person the attack was directed at.

With Jean-Christophe Folly as Nourou and Maren Eggert as Maja, the German-French film relies on performances that do not seek quick answers. The ancient tragedy “Medea” provides a backdrop for questions of power, the artistic gaze and colonial conditioning. The filming in Senegal, too, does not remain mere scenery, but is part of the tensions that later resurface in Berlin.

In France, “Gavagai, et autres malentendus” is set to open on 22/07/2026. The film, produced in 2025, had previously attracted attention at, among other events, the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2026. Its relevance lies less in a grand thesis than in the uncertainty it observes: racism is not visible only where someone is openly insulted. It also shows itself in who is allowed to speak, who is heard – and who asks too late at the decisive moment.