Angela Merkel - The Unexpected

The story of Chancellor Merkel’s unexpected rise to power – from an East German physicist to the most powerful woman in the world. We look at her biography from when she entered the political stage in 1989 to the present. A second focus is put on the refugee crisis, which is worked into the main storyline with news collages and establishes a relationship between Merkel’s actions in the crisis and her political biography. What is Merkel doing? What is her motivation? The film looks at three main aspects of Angela Merkel’s political profile: Firstly her methods of power, secondly her personal values, and thirdly her international stand. Important events in her career serve to characterise her and highlight these aspects. In the three chapters, and in her personality, we search for the unexpected and unanticipated. This is the controlling motif of the documentary. Political and personal companions comment on her childhood in East Germany, her first political steps, her rise to power, her eventful chancellorship, and the current political situation she is facing. Angela Merkel herself reflects in an exclusive interview on her life, her unexpected and unprecedented career, the current refugee crisis, and finally on herself as a politician, a motivator, or a listener.