Im Prinzip Familie

In the organizer's words:

• DE 2024
• 91 min
• Director: Daniel Abma
• FSK: from 0 years
• Documentary: Original version with German voiceover and subtitles where applicable

Screenings:

• Thu, June 5, 2025 - Wed, June 11, 2025 at 5:00 p.m.

Almost like family, but always temporary: between parental love, bureaucracy and the
youth welfare office, three educators give their all to create a home for children. A movie about the superpower of raising a child and family in all its facets.

In a house on the shores of an idyllic lake, surrounded by dense forests, three educators work in shifts in a residential group. The children call them Mr. Wagner, Mrs. Wagner and Mr. Gerecke. Cooking, washing, shopping and taking the children to school and leisure activities in the van are just as much a part of their daily routine as listening, comforting, cuddling on the sofa, movie nights and reading bedtime stories. The caregivers do not want to be surrogate parents, but still want to show what family togetherness can feel like.

All five children who live here have one thing in common: the desire to return home one day. The educators work tirelessly to achieve this: they talk to guardians, parents and the youth welfare office, document, organize, set goals together and make appointments - and are often disappointed that these are not kept. This is reminiscent of tilting at windmills, at the limits of an overburdened system.

What used to be the village is now the complex apparatus of child and youth welfare. Since the pandemic at the latest, the professional field has been considered relevant to the system, and yet the special and challenging work of the professionals, their dedicated commitment to the well-being of children, usually remains invisible. For over a year, IM PRINZIP FAMILIE provides an intimate insight into the everyday life of child and youth welfare and focuses on the people in the background who work day in, day out to give children what they need most: Security and someone who is on their side.