this is my country
This is a story about Germany today. This is the story about
a divided country, a country divided not anymore by the iron
curtain, but by hate and fear in the hearts of their inhabitants.
This is a story about a divided Europe too, because what Germany
is going through right now will happen to Europe in the long
term - we believe. It is a chance and a risk. It is a necessity
and inevitable. It is a mayor change of history and it is
happening right now and here. As the borders between countries
fell, as the borders between east and west, between different
political systems fell, people will have to learn, that the
borders remain in the peoples hearts and that there are new
borders about to rise and old borders about to remain. This
is a story about the new walls in the hearts of the people
who brought down the concrete wall which once divided the
country that caused two world wars. Today there is a new war,
once between nations, today waiting behind the next street
corner, between people who were raised to be neighbors, but
ended up, to become enemies.
Reporter Antonio Cascais travels through HIS country, the
son of Portuguese immigrants reclaims the territory for himself
and his protagonists. On his search for people who he met
during the last years through his work as journalist for German
Television, we travel from Dortmund in the west, where Antonio
grew up to Berlin and small places in eastern Germany, once
famous for its right wing hate crime. We visit victims and
agressors. And observe how the country is changing - hopefully
to a better future. We travel to the west, a small town near
Frankfurt on the trace of another German biography: Marco,
born and raised in Germany, but still Italian citizen on paper
was deported 6 times after being sentenced for 3 years prison,
when he was 15 years old. Marco insists, that only Germany,
could be his home, because of the language, the culture he
grew up with, the family who supports him. But he will be
forced out of the country for the rest of his life, mainly
not because he committed a crime, when he was still young,
but because of cynical and nationalistic German immigration
laws.
Director Marcel Kolvenbach captured the journey with a subjective,
sometimes experimental, camera view, always close to Antonios
point of view. ...
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