Director Indira Geisel and host Dirk Assel will be at the Cinema that day to discuss the film with the audience.

When a former SPD mayor runs for Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party, his daughter pulls out her camera and begins to observe her family. Where do you belong when the political landscape changes?

Directed by Indira Geisel and produced by Sommer Slatter Film in co-production with ZDF’s “Kleines Fernsehspiel” and the University of Television and Film Munich, with support from the Bavarian Banking Fund.

The documentary:

As right-wing support grows in Europe, German center-left politician Thomas Geisel struggles to save himself and his left-liberal party from irrelevance. In search of politics that make sense to him, the former mayor of Düsseldorf joins a new left-populist party that aims to win back the working class. For his 93-year-old father, a lifelong Social Democrat, this is a betrayal. In this first-person documentary, his daughter follows the campaign and the family. Is this just a cockfight among established men? Or a search for a place to belong as the world changes?

The family of filmmaker Indira Geisel, born in 1996, has been an SPD dynasty for several generations. When her father, Thomas Geisel, the former SPD mayor of Düsseldorf, leaves the SPD in January 2024 and instead runs for the newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), it triggers a family crisis. In particular, his 93-year-old father, Alfred Geisel—the “grand seigneur of Swabian social democracy”—reacts with incomprehension. For him, this move is an act of disloyalty; for longtime allies, it is a slide into populism. Thomas Geisel’s daughters also struggle to understand the reasons behind his decision.

Indira Geisel accompanies her father with a camera, documenting political discussions and fault lines within the family—and in doing so, she also sheds light on the current state of the German political landscape. Indira Geisel’s documentary, produced by the ZDF program “Das kleine Fernsehspiel,” shows in a direct, unfiltered, and vivid way: “Politics is personal.”

Director
Indira Geisel
Cinematography
Indira Geisel
Production Company
Sommer Slatter Film (Munich)
Producer
Thomas Slatter
Felix Sommer