Welcome to Reality
The First 100 Days of Pirate Politics
With 15 delegates, the Pirate Party is entering the Berlin Abgeordneten Haus, and will now have a say in how the federal capital is run. The film "Willkommen in der Realität" (Welcome to Reality) deals with the first hundred days of this small, young team. How is this politically inexperienced group of activists preparing itself for the tasks that lie ahead? What are their priorities? What are they looking forward to, what are they afraid of?
Today, in the 20th century, decades after the entry of the Greens into the parliaments of the federal states, what does it mean when a new political party is launched? Do they simply want to be in the opposition? Or are young people today again more strongly interested in participating in social and political processes?
Is the time ripe again for a new social movement? Germany's Piratenpartei (Pirate Party), founded in 2006, is working tirelessly to achieve its goal: to become a part of the system without conforming to its expectations.
Besides concentrating on the first sessions of the Piratenpartei and its initial internal discussions, and going beyond personal politics, this documentary explores the second level of such questions by focusing on the new social phenomena occurring among young people today. Was it simply the political fatigue generated by the established parties, the endless personnel disputes, which summoned the Piratenpartei into existence? What does political resistance mean today?
Voicing their opinions in this documentary are the politicians of the established parties as well: the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Have these parties been taken by surprise, even overtaken by recent technological developments? What do the representatives of the Jusos of the SPD (Young Socialists), the jungen Grünen (Young Greens), and the jungen Christdemokraten (Young Christian Democrats) have to say about the competing Piratenpartei?
It is a question of the politics of a new generation - a generation which communicates differently, exchanges information in new ways, is less interested in the routine channels of the institutionalized political parties, but wants instead to implement its ideas directly, exploiting the democratic opening offered by online networking.
Screenplay/Direction
Nicola Graef / Thorsten Mandalka
Produced:
2012,
ARD/RBB/WDR
45 min.
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