
Hope, Homesickness, New Beginnings: How Years Abroad Shape Young People
Robincrusoe Angeli leaves Cameroon in 2019 for Berlin, taking part in Germany's Federal Voluntary Service program, which sends volunteers abroad and brings foreigners into Germany on the same terms. He works with the environmental group Grüne Liga on a small monthly allowance, learning quickly that a strange city is harder than he expected: making friends stalls, homesickness sets in, and daily routines that Germans take for granted become small obstacles. The film follows him through those setbacks and the moments he finds his footing, using his experience to ask a broader question about what a year of voluntary service actually does to the people who take part in it, and to those who host them. Interviews and observational footage track what Angeli learns about Germany and, in turn, what the Germans around him learn from having him there. It stays close to one person's daily life rather than generalizing about the program, and treats the friction of adjusting to another culture as the real subject.