
Hotel Hope: Where Refugees Begin a New Life
An empty hotel in downtown Düsseldorf becomes the site of an experiment in refugee integration. Karin Jungjohann, co-founder of the language school Hispi, had watched refugees stall for years inside standard accommodation centers while local restaurateurs complained they couldn't find staff. Her answer is the House of Friends: refugees move into the vacant hotel and receive concentrated language training, mentoring, and direct connections to employers looking to fill jobs in the catering industry. A film crew follows the project from the initial selection of participants through their placement into jobs or training programs, tracking individual cases as they navigate German bureaucracy, language barriers, and the day-to-day work of building a new life. The film stays close to the practical mechanics of the program rather than abstract policy debate, showing what actually changes when housing, language instruction, and job placement are combined under one roof. It is a specific, small-scale case study of one city's attempt to solve integration by rethinking logistics rather than rules.