2030 - Aufstand der Jungen (2010)

In Berlin in 2030, the young Tim Burdenski is found seriously injured on Gendarmenmarkt. After a taxi driver calls emergency services, he is taken to a hospital, but dies despite an emergency operation that was started too late. Journalist Lena Bach begins investigating because the 30-year-old has been followed by a television crew since his birth on January 1, 2000, as one of ten so-called “Millennium Children” in a long-term documentary. They all come from the middle class. The public prosecutor’s office tells the public that he was caught trying to break into the heavily protected national data registry and was shot by a special police unit while fleeing. However, Tim’s longtime girlfriend Sophie Schäfer, another Millennium Child, claims that Tim is not dead at all and that she received a phone call from him. After Lena learns that his body was to be cremated without an autopsy report, she decides to continue investigating and to build a picture of Tim’s life from the documentary. Together with Sophie, she uncovers further inconsistencies. Contrary to the way he was portrayed on television, he apparently lived in oppressive poverty and was heavily in debt. Despite his talent, Tim could not afford to study art and initially had a permanent job as a graphic designer. But, like many others, he was laid off for operational reasons and kept himself afloat with odd jobs. Ashamed, he hid the fact that he had no money and fell into debt after his grandmother became in need of care and the family had to bear a large share of the care costs. Following the financial crisis that began in 2007, from 2015 onward the federal government drastically cut most social benefits, dissolved the intergenerational social contract and abolished the state pension, while largely privatizing the pension, long-term care and health insurance systems. Tuition fees were also sharply increased, and a national database containing personal information on all citizens was created. Personal insolvency was no longer an option, driving numerous people into illegality. While searching for Tim, Lena and Sophie discover a mobile-phone photo posted online showing him in the Berlin-Schöneberg ghetto of “Höllenberg,” giving them proof that Tim is alive. The neighborhood, where the “Hoffnungstal” initiative founded by Vincent Fischer is based, is marked by bitter poverty and crime and is populated by people from the impoverished middle class. The initiative is made up of people on the fringes of illegality who have turned their backs on the state and want to replace the dysfunctional welfare state through mutual aid and individual initiative. As a hospital nurse, Fischer helps, among others, seriously ill patients who are in debt because of the antisocial healthcare system by providing them with fake death certificates so they can go underground. When Fischer is killed while fleeing the police, social tensions erupt among the impoverished population, followed by violent riots lasting several days that spread across all of Germany and are violently put down by the police. Eventually, Lena and Sophie receive a clue to Tim’s whereabouts. Paula, who is married to Tim, is seriously ill with cancer and is being treated at an illegal clinic. Years earlier, after taking a genetic test that assessed her personal likelihood of developing illnesses in the future, she chose a cheaper insurance plan; the health insurer now refuses to cover the costly treatment, claiming it is not included in her coverage. Despite being transferred, she eventually dies. Despite the great danger, Tim tried to manipulate her data, faked his death and went underground. In the end, Tim turns himself in to the police and is sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence for attempted data manipulation.