Our society speaks of youth only, but finds it difficult to give way to the new generation. Young people have to fight to find their place and have to outperform older people who stubbornly continue to consider themselves as young people and to speak in their name. Young people are struggling to find their own way in a society without any points of reference. They are finding it difficult to enter the labour market and they are aware that a new model of society must be found. At the same time, they are under the impression that politics no longer have anything to offer and that politicians are merely figureheads. These factors make the idea of giving the floor to the young generation and showing interest in their problems important. Even though the younger generation has no ready-made solutions, it deserves our trust, our giving them the chance to try out new things, because mankind needs them. They are our future. This film is a modest contribution to giving the floor to those on whom rests the responsibility of inventing a new model, although they are often still invisible, especially in this country. Yet they are our children and the future of Switzerland. It is time we knew who they are and what their position is about Switzerland and the world.
We could have done a new casting, gone to see other young Swiss people to hear what they had to say. But when we contacted the young people who appeared in “Teen Stories”, we realized that the relationship of trust that was established over the eight years of shooting is profound and lasting and that we would get infinitely more “confessions” from these young people Moreover, our relationship has become symmetrical because we are now among adults, but of different generations. As was the case during the shooting of the four episodes of “Teen Stories”, we are motivated by the wealth of their testimony, the intimate relationship that has developed between us, a relationship allowing for a unique look at this country’s young generation and their families.
A snapshot of the moment
Unlike “Teen Stories”, we no longer wish to follow them for years running. Instead, we want to be part of their lives for the duration of one film, to report as precisely as possible on what they have become, their evolution, their relationship with their family, their vision of the present and how they envisage to build their future.
We discovered that each one of them, in their own way, has embarked on the winding road towards independence, in search of their own identity, far away from their parents’ projections. How are they getting on with this new experience of life? How do some of them grapple with the burden of their parents’ divorce, which they still feel as a deep wound at this juncture of their life? How do they see the demands of a working life? How do they deal with the solitude linked to being single? How do they see the challenges of married life? How do they manage the new conflicts with their parents, conflicts that were triggered by their departure? How do the parents experience this inevitable departure? What trace has the period of their adolescence left in their parents’ life? How do their parents, some of them now retired, experience the fact that they are again a couple without children? Do they accept the life choices of their children?
All these issues resonate with our time and its realities.