The European Grandma Project

Retells history from the perspective of women who were witnesses to contemporary history and who shaped the course of events.

We are interested in a female interpretation of events that took place during the past 100 years up to and including the modern day.

Those involved are European artists and their grandmothers, whose stories and views provide a critical, as well as affectionate, perspective on a shared European history.

Grandmothers from all over Europe who tell their life stories to their granddaughters are at the heart of our project.

Politics has an impact everywhere: even in our personal lives.

We want to find out what kind of impact our grandmothers had to face.

Might history have turned out differently if our grandmothers had had a greater say, or would things have remained the same? We aim to objectively explore this question.

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The Project

Grandmothers from all over Europe who tell their life stories to their granddaughters are at the heart of our Project. The personal relationship between the grandmother and the descendant will be tangible in the film and confers a certain ease, a relaxed attitude and intimacy to the individual testimony or art piece.

The Documentary

Female directors from nine countries work on cinematic portraits of their grandmothers. In these portraits, which will be combined to one full-length film, women tell their life stories. The grandmothers’ romantic relationships, living conditions, personal development and philosophies will be the centre of each contribution. Each story will identify to which extent the political situation in different parts of Europe has changed or shaped these women’s lives.

The Aim

Our activities are seeking to foster intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding among people from different cultures and backgrounds by focussing to only on our differences, but shedding light on our similarities and we are building on culture with a view to helping counter all forms of discrimination – which is, in our belief, what Europe desperately needs today.

Our mission is to realize a connection between the main elements of the project and both its audience and participants with the aim of achieving the sense of togetherness that comes with the realization that, despite all our cultural differences, we are all in many ways actually quite similar.

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