The False Promise of Advancement (2025)

Plot Summary

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.

Full 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)

Director & Crew

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