Within society as a whole, people are increasingly talking about the East but rarely with the East. At the same time, media reporting creates a one-sided image of East Germany which has primarily negative connotations. When it comes to the future of the East, an awareness of its past and present must be created. However, young voices are hardly heard in this discourse.

 

 

So we launched “(K)Einheit - How Gen Z thinks about the East” in the summer of 2022. First, ten young people from the East should be given the opportunity to describe their perspectives on the culture of remembrance and socialization, German unity and their future in the East. In order to give this generation a chance to have their say, we applied for funding for a film project from the Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 gGmbH in July 2022. Because in the context of the East German discourse, different topics are highly relevant and all equally should be taken into account, we decided to shoot a series documentary with five different thematic series parts to implement the film project. We were able to start producing the series documentary in September 2022.

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During the course of the shoot and in the exchange with the protagonists, it quickly became clear: more space for dialogue and exchange is needed. So, step by step, we began to develop our film project “(K)Einheit - How Gen Z thinks about the East” into an educational policy project. It was important to us not only to think about a young East German generation, but also to initiate an intergenerational exchange across generations and supposedly East German borders. We see ourselves as the voice of Generation Z in the East. We have recorded our vision and mission of East-conscious activism here.