at one table

The Film

We are two filmmakers who want to travel through all 28 EU-countries with a van. In each country we will look for unique protagonists, who are willing to tell us their stories. We want to show the many unknown worlds within our familiar world, challenge ourselves and reveal the beauty of Europe‘s diversity.

We invite all protagonists to eat and talk with us at our round table. In the beginning it will be a flawless, wooden table. However, after each encounter we will ask our guests to cut a mark in the wood, like their names or a sign that means something to them. At the end of our journey this table will be a witness of all the beautiful, sad, confusing and funny encounters that took place at our table.

We’ll either invite one person or two people, who live close to each other and yet in opposite worlds. The questions we‘ll ask them are always the same: In the middle of the table is a stack of cards. With each card they‘ll pick up, we’ll ask for ‘a first time’ in the lives of our guests. Sometimes the questions seem banal and sometimes existential.

The listener may ask questions, but it‘s important not to change the subject or use someone else’s story as springboard for one’s own. After the story is finished the counterpart may answer the same question or take a new card from the stack

Of course they‘re free to skip questions. Nobody should feel under pressure and nobody has to answer all the questions. All we want is to give untold stories a safe place to be told.

The last card is a special card. With this card we allow our guests to challenge us: What first time should the filmmakers experience on their journey? In order to learn something new, we need to leave our comfort zone and go beyond fear.

It‘s possible to use our own first-timeexperiences either for a sequence in the film or for a making-of.

This movie is not supposed to have one coherent look & feel. It’s more like a collage - as colorful, eclectic, surprising and disturbing as Europe itself - held together by Sylvia’s essayistic point of view as a narrator and by the chronological arc. We will edit the selected first-time-stories in such a way, that it seems like one European life, told by many different voices from different worlds within Europe. This film is our attempt to explore the familiar, to extract pure experiences and to give us, as Europeans, one identity - it‘s a dissonant identity, but an identity.

the approach

In the recent years we’ve travelled around the world and worked for commercial film productions worldwide. We’ve shot a lot of stuff with happy people, big smiles, shiny cars, waving arms, flying hair, meaningless drone shots and uncountable „magic moments“ - whatever clients mean when they say that!?

We had fun, we learned a lot about the technical side of filmmaking, made good money and lived on a high standard. But at the same time we missed to get in touch with the world outside of our comfort zone and to share genuine stories by real people.

One day Moritz and I talked about how big and uncharted the world seemed when we were children. And today? We are aware of all the global issues, but our world has actually become smaller. We do what we do best, surround ourself with people the same age, who share the same cultural background, who vote like we do and together - in a kind of peaceful consent - we watch the world from our balconies. Inside our safe bubble we complain about the emerging protectionism and nationalism in Europe und agree each other in our open minded point of view… but maybe we are part of the problem!?

As children of the post-war-generation we didn’t have the urgent need to fight against fascistic networks, denunciatory systems, misogyny and conservatism. We took the freedom and the friendship of the European nations as a beautiful gift. By now we know: it is a gift that can be taken away from us.

It’s time to take responsibility for what we love - not only by protesting against what separates us but by bringing Europe back at one table.

This film is not a political statement though our motivation is very political. It’s our contribution for an open society in Europe and hopefully an impulse for other people to leave their safe ‚bubble’ and start to ask essential questions. Our stories are individual, but if we make the effort to dig deeper we find much more that units us than divides us.

Our media talks a lot about numbers, facts... and most of all about opinions, but we don’t talk much about the experience that forms who we are, what we long for and what we are afraid of. If we want to understand why people decide how they decide, we have to look for the experiences that led to their decisions.

The greek expression for the word truth is ‚Alethea‘ and it means something like uncovered-ness. We like the idea that it describes the result of a process instead of a state. To reveal a truth that connects us on a deeper level we have to dig for the experience. And what feels more pure, more radical and more frighting than the experience of a first time?

We are all beginners, who try, who fail and who are afraid of the next step. To know that makes us feel less separated from the rest of the world.

In addition to this social approach it’s also a wonderful challenge for us to be open for everyone who’s open for us and to allow these strangers to change the way we see them and us. We want to meet Europe like it‘s the first time.