Statement_eng
Statement_eng
Director´s Statement:
MY GENERATION
Nowadays, if one hasn't made it by the age of 30, it's all over, isn’t it.
When I was 20, my life was simple, straightforward. The term “time“ didn't mean anything to me. Roughly ten years later my view on life has changed completely. I've started to discover first signs of bodily decay without ever having done any physical labour, quite the opposite. How many days will I have left to fulfil my dreams? Where is my life headed, and what have I achieved so far? I haven't earned a degree, I don't have a serious profession. I haven't built a house, nor do I have any savings. Neither do I have a wife, children or any sort of female companionship in sight. I have nothing, I am nothing. Another 30 years and I will be dead.
To imagine my life ending at the age of 30 is absurd! Unlike generations before us ours has never experienced war or starvation. We have the luxury of being able to grow up late in life. So, do I have these thoughts because I'm just another spoiled 30 year old Western European middle class child? Are these existential anxieties in any way based in the material world, or are they figments of my imagination? Do our generation want to remain children forever? Are our worries just by-products of our own vanity, of our sensitive and delicate minds? Or is there something lurking behind this? Is there a biological time, when our bodies or consciousness tells us to get up and finally do something significant with our lives?
My generation exists between two opposing worlds: on the one side are our parents who raised us with their knowledge that world history or their own lives could have taken a completely different turn. Directly or indirectly they were affected by WWII and by the boom of the 60s and 70s including all of the economic and social changes of that time. They were also a generation that profited from high employment rates and stable careers.
Then there are those under the age of 20, a generation of people who are under an enormous pressure to perform, those whose lives are structured towards success. Their worlds are defined by supermodels that march up the catwalk at age 14 and who at the age of 23 are considered senior citizens. The marketing machinery surrounding them creates an ideology of performance that glorifies the power of youth.
We, the 30-somethings, are caught in the middle, brought up by our security-oriented parents and strongly influenced by today´s performance-oriented society. This shifting of general perception and personal objectives has had a strong effect - especially on my generation and myself.
