11 mm PLUS – football and film: a new experience of cultural education

The pilot phase begins in March 2025 in Gera

The living environments of young people in western and eastern Germany are becoming increasingly similar, yet the feeling of being “left behind” and having “limited future prospects” is becoming increasingly pronounced in rural areas of eastern Germany. Outside of their artificial online realities, young people in rural areas in eastern Germany are often only exposed to a limited range of cultural, political and social influences.

What does 11mmPLUS want?
With the help of the popular topics football and film, there are opportunities to live out the passion for both topics creatively and artistically. Film as a medium is a well-suited instrument to channel a passion for soccer into creative and cultural activities. In cooperation with our “11mm-football-Filmfestival” and soccer clubs in rural East Germany, we want to offer professionally guided film workshops for young people with an affinity for soccer. The specific cinematic work encourages the young people’s creativity, teaches them to differentiate content and change perspectives through the development of material, and strengthens their flexibility, acceptance of responsibility and discussion skills, as well as their understanding of democracy and tolerance, through the necessary coordination processes within the team. Through access to new topics and a more multi-layered perception of groups of people and life models, the project will not only contribute to the development of future skills, but also lead to an openness towards diversity in society.

The new project “11mm – football und Film: Kulturelle Bildung neu erleben”, funded by the DROSOS Foundation, Zurich, was developed for this purpose and will be launched in spring 2025 in collaboration with the Berlin-based association bilderbewegen e.V.

The first project
will start in March at TSV 1886 Gera-Leumnitz. This is where we will be setting up the first three-month film workshop for young people.
Information on when and where will follow shortly and can be obtained directly from the club.