When parents can no longer fulfil their duty of care, the children’s world often falls apart. Nothing stays as it was. Suddenly it is no longer mum or dad who are in charge but the youth welfare system. Daniel Abma followed a youth housing group in a rural area over several years, showing professional educators who want to give five boys between the ages of seven and fourteen what they need most urgently, day by day: security, orientation, a home.
The documentary focus is not on the children but on those who take the parents’ place. They sometimes remind us of Don Quixote tilting at the windmills, for there is a diffusion of responsibility between school, youth welfare services, and absent mothers and fathers. Words fail when adults do not keep appointments, when those in charge capitulate in the face of racist bullying and propose some “time out” – for the bullied boy – in a psychiatric facility. It would be easy to denounce these mechanisms, but that is not the point Daniel Abma wants to make. His observation, both emphatic and reserved, looks questioningly into the gaps in the system – with those who are in danger of falling through and those who try to fill them with affection. He makes us suspect that the answer is not to close all the system’s gaps. It is people who are there for other people and take responsibility.

What does it mean to live a nomadic life in Germany today? How do people see you when to keep moving is more important to you than possessions and social status? What are the prejudices faced by people who work outside the 40-hours-per-week regular job model and want to be fulfilled? To get some answers to these questions, Anna Friedrich walks part of the way with four women who prefer travelling to settling.
The journeywoman Magdalena loves the intensity of permanent new beginnings, but travelling also keeps her from working in her dream job as a qualified farmer. As an activist, Johanna lives in her refurbished van, which she has parked at various spots for years, and frequently takes part in political protests like forest occupations. Elwera, a former tightrope artist, and her granddaughter Ghislaine belong to the Yenish community who move from market to market, continuing a generations-old tradition. Director Anna Friedrich uses the conversations to shed light on her own longing for being on the road, but also for a critical reflection of the settled world in the eyes of these women. The potentials of a nomadic existence thus emerge – and how they are in danger of wasting away between settlement permits and garden fences. Stepping to the other side of the fence opens possibilities.