Inclusion
In her film, director Hella Wenders takes up a topic that is currently on everyone's lips. The term inclusion is used to negotiate whether we are actually promoting our children appropriately by raising them separately. School educates for life. But how can it do this if it separates what belongs together? Inclusion in brief says "you belong" instead of "you are allowed to participate". A view of society that includes us all and therefore concerns us all.
However, a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation has shown that Germany, with an average of twenty percent inclusion, lags far behind neighbouring countries such as Switzerland and Italy. Since 2009, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has demanded that disabled children be allowed to attend the same schools as their non-disabled peers.
»Inclusion can be talked about and debated a lot – often very emotionally and starting from a school system that has been familiar to everyone involved for decades. In the discussion, however, the children who should be the focus of attention often play only a subordinate role. This is exactly where Hella Wenders starts with her film.« Dr. Thomas Franzkowiak, expert for inclusion, University of Siegen
»I didn't want to make an educational film that tries to explain something, but a documentary film for EVERYBODY, which tells the children's point of view pure and unfiltered. A film that touches, that makes you laugh and cry. At the end of the film you have met four people, experienced many things with them, shared wishes and dreams with them. The shock that after class four the inclusion is over hits the viewer in the heart, who was able to experience how well they were doing together.« Hella Wenders