"The Tender Revolution" by Annelie Boros. An interview with the director

The providers of the film "The Tender Revolution" drew our attention to this film. As we know some of the protagonists - Arnold Schnittger is part of the Care Revolution network with Nicos Farm e.V.; the Freiburg regional group organised an event with Bozena Domanska as part of an alliance - we were curious. After a few of us had the chance to see the film in advance, we were keen to interview the director. You can read the result here.

The film will be released on 14 August; the interview with Annelie Boros was conducted by Matthias Neumann.

You gave your film the title "The Tender Revolution". It combines the suffering of people under the framework conditions of care work, personal contact with pain, indignation and turning towards others, the striving for alternatives. What inspired you to place the personal suffering and desire of the protagonists at the centre of this connection?

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, I had been increasingly concerned with the topic of care work and observed how many people around me were struggling to take good care of themselves and others. Corona then intensified this even more and I found it absurd that we were constantly prioritising our work and our performance instead of taking good care of each other. Suddenly I saw this everywhere: in friendships, among parents, with sick and disabled people. When my flatmate took her own life during my research for the film, it was clear to me that I wanted to use this film to ask myself what kind of world she would have liked to live in. What would such a world look like? A world full of care and tenderness? So the film meets different people who care for others and ask themselves precisely this question: What do we need to change in our world so that we have the time and space to put our needs at the centre instead of profits?

Please describe for the readers who is at the centre of the film and why you chose these people.

My personal experience with my flatmate is the framework and the initial question of the film: What would the world have to be like for her not to see disappearing from it as the only way out? Over the course of the film, we meet four protagonists who help me to answer this question. There is the carer father Arnold Schnittger, who has been looking after his severely disabled son Nico for 30 years, founded the association "Nicos Farm" and has been fighting for years with protest campaigns to bring about change for family carers. Then we meet Bożena Domańska, a former 24-hour carer from Poland, who left her parents and daughter behind in her home country to look after senior citizens in Germany and Switzerland and is now organised in a trade union to fight for her rights with other carers. We will also meet Amanda Luna Tacunan, an indigenous climate activist and doctor who has witnessed several climate disasters in Peru and wants to make us realise that we are only healthy if our environment is too and that caring for nature is an urgent part of a care revolution. And finally Samuel Flach, who has been in a wheelchair since an accident and talks about his experiences as a care recipient, while at the same time being active as a carer by setting up an inclusive house project in the centre of Munich with his association Gemeinwohlwohnen.

The film repeatedly makes the point that capitalism - or would you use another term? - not only lacks time, resources and empathy for people in caring relationships, but also destroys the natural foundations of life. What makes this connection?

In a capitalist system, we are currently not encouraged to really listen to what we need. We are all basically constantly overstepping our own boundaries and often don't have the opportunity to really listen to our needs. We treat nature in a similar way to the way we treat our own bodies: We think that its resources are infinite, forgetting that we are absolutely dependent on them. And we have learnt to see this dependence on the world we live in, on other people and on our own health as something negative: We think we are weak if we have to call on others, if we can't do something or reach our limits - and so we also don't want to see that we can't control nature. But this is precisely what I want to draw attention to with the film: We are not independent and detached from our needs and our environment. We are all constantly dependent, we need care from the second we are born - and also need it every day as healthy adults: by taking in food, practising self-care, asking someone for advice. Accepting this and realising how much we need our environment and other people - and how beautiful it is to celebrate this! - is what this film aims to create.

The film says: "Samuel writes to me: What would our world look like if care were at the centre of everything we do?" What would it look like?

I don't think I alone can give that answer. But I would like everyone who watches the film to think about this question and look for an answer for themselves. For me personally, it would be a world in which we distribute work in such a way that there would be care networks in which nobody has to be overburdened when someone else needs help because the work would be spread over enough shoulders. A world in which we can see caring for exactly what it is: as a very beautiful, meaningful and unifying activity. A world in which perhaps my flatmate wouldn't have had to decide that she couldn't be part of it either - because we wouldn't have had no time to deal with her condition due to all the paid work, but would have had space to deal carefully with all deviations from a supposed "norm". A world free from the stigma of mental and physical illness, in which we put everyone's needs at the centre. Sounds nice, doesn't it?

And finally, what steps towards a tender revolution would you like to encourage viewers to take?

On a small and private scale: as far as possible, to prioritise what is really important. To look into worlds that are otherwise invisible. To draw attention to these worlds. To enquire when it seems as if someone might be in need. To ask yourself: How do I want to live? And to be honest with yourself and communicate this: The more we talk about what we need, where we are needy and in need, the more we can also contribute on a small scale to normalising the fact that we all need others all the time.

On a large and political scale: Get active for a care revolution! There are so many organisations and communities where you can get involved. So many people who are already doing so much inspiring work that you can join. So often you feel like your needs are for everyone - but the more you talk about it and publicise it, the clearer it becomes how many people are out there who feel the same way and perhaps want a similar change. And these individual struggles need to be brought together!

Is there anything else you would like to add?

The world looks very bleak at the moment. But I firmly believe that a tender revolution is possible, and the protagonists of this film have helped me to see what is already there to draw on. I am very optimistic that many things will change for the better if we continue to work together. As Arnold says in the film: "Always between tenderness and anger!"