Oh, wie frei ist Panama?

DE 2022, 16 min

German

synopsis

The German martial artist Yve firmly believes that the coronavirus pandemic is a global farce. Since she started sharing her views with thousands of followers via her Instagram account, she has moved further and further into the fringes of society, losing not only friends but also her job in the process. Together with her boyfriend, she has decided to emigrate to a country where she believes she can live and speak more freely: Panama. In Panama, One-Way we follow Yve during her last days in Berlin as she says goodbye to her dear ones – and delve into the life of a woman who has moved so far away from the social consensus that she is now willing to leave her people behind for good.

Panama, One-Way is a production of Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF.

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director’s statement

Before studying directing, I used to be student of philosophy. My research focus back then was in epistemology, which deals with the question of why we believe in the things we believe in, however eccentric they may be. I wanted to understand what attracted people to conspiracy theories in the first place, what was so seductive about their way of explaining the world. I was also interested in the role of the internet in spreading such narratives. My yearlong research into the world of Germany’s “conspiracy influencers” led me to Yve, a compelling person whose political views could not be any more different than mine. After 5 months of dialogue, she agreed to allow me to document her departure from German society. The resulting work is my very personal attempt to understand not only an increasingly difficult social issue in Europe and elsewhere, but especially the role of documentary film in dealing with it. Is it possible to portray certain subjects without providing an uncritical platform for their ideas? Can we build bridges between us and the people we portray, or is the camera destined to raise an insurmountable wall between documentarian and documented?