THE FALSE PROMISE OF ADVANCEMENT (2025)

The False Promise of Advancement
Not Rated
The False Promise of Advancement
Documentary, TV Movie
January 22, 2025
German
1h 30m
Germany
Hoferichter & Jacobs

Origin sticks like shit to your shoe! That's what Marlen Hobrack says, who grew up as a working-class child in Bautzen. But the promise of the old Federal Republic was that you can become anything if you just try hard enough. But that no longer applies. So is class in Germany fixed from birth? Have we long been living in a country in which origin and family background are more important for future prospects than individual performance and commitment? In Germany, it takes six generations to rise from poverty to the middle class, in Denmark only two generations. Those affected reflect on their life stories, the burden of their social origins, the wrong and right turning points for social advancement, as classified by social researchers. They talk of pride and shame, of financial hardship and wealth, of origin and future, of growing up and moving up in this Germany with its entrenched selection mechanisms for social advancement.

Cast & Characters

Marlen Hobrack

Self - Interviewee

Scott Wempe

Self - Interviewee

Natalya Nepomnyashcha

Self - Interviewee

Jörg Theobald

Self - Interviewee

Stephanie zu Guttenberg

Self - Interviewee

Cawa Younosi

Self - Interviewee

Martyna Linartas

Self - Interviewee

Marcel Helbig

Self - Interviewee

Michael Hartmann

Self - Interviewee

Ciani-Sophia Höder

Self - Interviewee

Eva Voss

Self - Interviewee

Joe Kaeser

Self (archive footage)

Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Self (archive footage)

Sky du Mont

Self (archive footage)

Harry S. Truman

Self (archive footage)

Winston Churchill

Self (archive footage)

Crew

Thomas Keffel

Director of Photography

Lars Langer

Director of Photography

Daniel Liepke

Director of Photography