YOUTH TOPIA

By Dennis STORMER

UCM.ONE GMBH - as SALES TV, World / DISTR

Comedy - Completed 2021

The film tells the story of Wanja, who is transformed from an outsider into an adult by the "algorithm" that ubiquitously dominates the near future. "Youth Topia" is a portrait of a young generation that is beginning to understand that with the privilege of self-realisation comes a lonely path.

Festivals
& Awards

Zurich FF 2021
    • Year of production
    • 2021
    • Genres
    • Comedy, Drama, Science-fiction
    • Countries
    • GERMANY, SWITZERLAND
    • Languages
    • GERMAN
    • Duration
    • 85 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Dennis STORMER
    • Writer(s)
    • Dennis STORMER, Marisa MEIER
    • Producer(s)
    • Dennis STORMER, Marisa MEIER, Katrin RENZ, Stefan JÄGER, Reiner KRAUSZ, Vita SPIEß
    • Synopsis
    • In Valpolvra, a village that has fallen out of time, self-fulfilment is the focus of all the inhabitants. Their dream jobs are reliably determined by an algorithm. The adolescents are spared the previously endless orientation phase of youth, the search for the perfect job, the many rejections and all the other crises of meaning. Instead, they all live fulfilled and productive lives. Those who don’t get a job because of rebellious, irresponsible and impulsive online profiles are classified by the algorithm as youthful and thus unfit for work. These people have the task of waiting until they are mature enough for a job. They are exempt from all duties, but also from all attractive privileges that only adults are allowed to enjoy.

      Wanja (21) resists becoming an adult. As a so-called long-term youth, she lives in an old barn with her clique, cut off from productive society. Together they live into the day, filming their illegal activities and posting clips of their immature and antisocial everyday life in order to remain youthful forever.

      One morning, Wanja surprisingly receives a job offer. Believing that she has more freedom as an adult and can still pursue the youthful lifestyle, she accepts the job calculated for her as an architect. Vanya loves suddenly getting so much attention and finally being able to decide freely. She enjoys her clean flat, her own car, her sexual acquaintance Lukas and life as an architect in Eva’s office. At first she shares her new life generously with her childhood friends. But the more successful she becomes, the more impossible it becomes to unite the two worlds.

      A new social centre is to force the long-term youths to grow up. Their own chosen home, the old barn is to be demolished for this purpose. Eva offers Wanja artistic direction over this prestigious project. Does Wanja break the last bridge to her old life for success and betray her only friends? Loneliness overcomes the young adult and she realises that young people have something that adults have lost: community.

      Vanya decides against her career to protect her old home, her best friends and Valpolvra’s last form of community.