Movies

Film Review: “Living Without Money”  http://livingwithoutmoney.org/

Trust a German to be organised and determined enough to live without money for over 13 years!!

On 16 June 2011, I attended a film night organised by SwapSity and Zeitgeist. The room at U of T’s OISE was packed with around 100 people. The film was a German documentary with English subtitles. Lucky for me I’m fluent in German, so I was able to understand some of the finer or less correctly translated comments as well.

• “Directed by Line Halvorsen, the film crew follows 68-year-old Heidemarie Schwermer, a German woman who made a deliberate choice to stop using money 14 years ago. She cancelled her apartment, gave away all of her belongings and kept nothing but a suitcase full of clothes. This was a decision that changed the entire outlook on her life dramatically.
  
  Today, after 14 years, she is still living almost without money and claims she is feeling more free and independent than ever.  The film follows Heidemarie in her day to day life and shows the challenges she meets by living an alternative lifestyle.
  
  Heidemarie is constantly on the move.... never worried about the future ..[or].. where she will sleep next week or where she will find her next meal...She travels all around Germany, often she is also in Austria, Switzerland and Italy, holding lectures about her experience and trying to convey the message that an easier way of life is possible.”

It was very interesting, and sometimes amusing, to hear Schwermer’s commentary and see people’s surprise at her inquiries. Interestingly, the people she approached to barter with for foodstuff or accommodation were mostly receptive, if taken aback. Community and schools groups to whom she gave talks were equally curious and mostly thought her approach creative, noble, and brave. Television media, however, both in Germany and Italy, seemed more intent on mocking her as some crazy old woman.

Whatever one’s opinion on how applicable such a non-monetary ‘system’ may be on a larger population scale, it is a film worth watching. It certainly shows the meaning of community and sharing in a whole new way.

  ~ Martina

Heidemarie Schwermer also founded a swap and barter program, “Gib & Nimm”, http://projekte.free.de/gibundnimm