The Road of Youth

In their film, the students meet people from Straße der Jugend in Schönwalde-Glien, the town's main street, which connects the town with Berlin and the outside world, but also divides it due to the heavy traffic and few traffic lights. For many of the students, the people they talk to are neighbors: they get to know these everyday “protagonists” in a whole new way, gaining insights into the feelings and experiences of the people around them and thus a deeper understanding of their surroundings. The stories told by the librarian, the mayor, a municipal employee, a bag maker who is now a bicycle dealer, the owner of a hair salon, and a firefighter paint a loving, multi-layered, but also ambivalent picture of the town. The students subtly and cleverly assemble the different perspectives on the increasing development of the town, on life in the town, and above all on the changes since the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification: During the GDR era, the Berlin Wall cut the town off from Berlin, which remained relatively quiet until the fall of the Wall despite its predestined location in the city's “affluent suburbs,” and the Straße der Jugend was so quiet that you could even roller skate on it. The students have thus succeeded in creating an impressive, personal, emotional, and socio-political portrait of their city that picks up on various traces of the pre- and post-reunification past. A documentary film by students of the Menschenskinder elementary school (Schönwalde-Glien) – 5th grade: A film by Emma Behm, Gino Blockus, Lukas Denk, Hanna-Sophie Falkenau, Lisa Marie Friedrich, Felix Handke, Klára Johanna Heindel, Mali Josefine Knott, Marlon Krüger, Damian Kruszynski, Holly Renate Listing, Alina Mandrossa, Mateo Marynek, Luca Oliver Meininger, Aymie Mißalla, Carolina Promnitz, Mira Sophie Rouvel, Jouline Larissa Schulz, Johannes Arved Unger, Mara-Helene Vierhuve, Elisabeth Walter, Sophie Winkler. Accompanied by teachers Ines Fischer and Franziska Lachmann, as well as filmmaker Bruno Derksen. (teachers), Sebastian Heidinger (filmmaker).