Of Places and People
WEBDOCU | THEATER
2020
In the summer of 2019, pupils at the Wolfgang-Borchert comprehensive school started planning a bike tour through Recklinghausen, visiting places that were meaningful to them. One year later, the world is a different place. A bicycle trip has become a journey through the lives of the young people. About places and people, about dreams and everyday life, about the future and the past, about small pleasures and great joy.
CLIP
STILLS
SYNOPSIS
In May 2019, pupils in year 9 at the Wolfgang-Borchert comprehensive school decide to take part in the Lernpark project, together with the filmmakers Ulrike Franke, Michael Loeken, Leonard Putz and their class teacher Andreas Lütkenhaus.
Their idea: to plan a bike tour through Recklinghausen that visitors to the Ruhrfestspiele Festival can do when they’re in town.
It is the beginning of a journey, far away from everyday school life and work, without a predetermined outcome, characterised by a feeling of security, openness, mutual acceptance, trust and cohesion. With this as the basis, it is the students and what moves them that become the focus of the film.
Fernando is drawn to the town’s exclusive residential area, where expensive cars stand in the driveways and the houses are big and white – „a dream“ for him. The playground at Drissenplatz is where Natalie lived out her childhood. And for Ahmed, the Al-Rawabi restaurant is a piece of home.
Over the next few months, the students each explore their places and meet the people who give them life.
And in the process, questions arise.
What paths have the students gone down? What issues do they care about? Where are they now? How do they view the future? And what questions come up when they do?
In 2020, the world is a different place. A bike tour with an audience cannot happen in the middle of a pandemic and at the end of year 10 at the comprehensive school, the students go their separate ways. While working on the tour, the pupils tell their story, turn their innermost selves inside out and thus become the face of the city – their city. On this journey, they talk about the future and the past, about dreams and everyday life and about the search for small pleasures and great joy during their coming of age.
CREDITS
Of Places and People
WEBDOCU | THEATER
2020
Idea, Realization: Ulrike Franke, Michael Loeken, Leonard Putz
Post-Production: Stephan Hock
Web-Site: Leonard Putz
Project-Management: Junge Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen
Projekt-Coordination: Emel Aydoğdu, Carina Langanki
Documentation: Sina Langner
In context of „Lernparks“ – ein kulturelles Bildungsprojekt der Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen mit Schüler*innen der Wolfgang-Borchert-Gesamtschule, dem Herwig-Blankertz-Berufskolleg, der Dietrich-Bomhoeffer-Realschule sowei dem Alexandrine-Hegemann-Berufskolleg.