First Afro-German detective on Germany’s oldest TV crime show

Florence Kasumba has acted in blockbusters including “The Avengers” and “Black Panther.” She has now picked up a lead role as a detective in “Tatort,” Germany’s longest-running TV show.

“Being here now is a dream come true,” said Florence Kasumba, referring to the filming which has just ended for the new Tatort show, in which she is the first black lead detective to appear.

She stars alongside Maria Furtwängler, another famous German actress, with the two of them tracking down criminals in the German city of Göttingen.

Kasumba is not entirely new to the cult detective show. In the past, she’s played a cleaning woman, an immigrant, and a barkeeper — all of them roles as a suspect, not an investigator.

Florence Kasumba in ‘Captain America’ (2016.): She’s been no stranger to Hollywood either, having acted in the blockbuster ‘The First Avenger: Civil War in 2016, in Wonder Woman in 2017, and Black Panther this year / Photo: Screenshot/JP

 

Born in Kampala, Uganda in 1976, Kasumba grew up in the North Rhine-Westphalia city of Essen. As a young girl, she already knew that she wanted to take to the stage. At the age of 12, she played in the musical Starlight Express, and from then on, it was true love with acting. In Germany and Austria, she’s played in The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, West Side Story, and Beauty and the Beast, as well as in Elton John’s Aida.

Hollywood blockbusters

She’s been no stranger to Hollywood either, having acted in the blockbuster The First Avenger: Civil War in 2016, in Wonder Woman in 2017, and Black Panther this year.

Despite her success, or perhaps because of it, it’s a still an honour to garner a leading role as detective Anaïs Schmitz in Germany’s longest running detective show, Tatort, on the air since 1970.

Alexandra Mölleken, Sarah Judith Hofmann (als) / © DW

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