Meuthen's Party

SYNOPSIS

Anti-immigrant and pro traditional social values, Germany’s new populist party, AfD (Alternative for Germany), is poised for a fight in the 2016 state elections. Enter a polite economics professor, Dr. Jörg Meuthen. Averse to the bluster of fervent hard-liners, he takes a quiet, rational approach, hoping to win uninitiated minds first and “deplorable” hearts second.

So unassuming, Meuthen thinks nothing of allowing student filmmaker Marc Eberhardt to accompany him on his campaign trail. Rolling out his strategy of reason and facts on the middle class in beer halls, he quells jeering crowds of protestors by finding common ground, inciting conversation rather than invective.

But it’s at his party’s national convention where he shows his true political face, as the camera pulls back to reveal the far more worrying scale of AfD’s base and leadership. What results is an unexpected, unvarnished primer on the rise of the new normalized right.

(Hot Docs, Myrocia Watamaniuk)