24 hours Ulm

What makes Ulm tick? This glossy documentary shows a 24-hour day in one of the most economically powerful cities in the southwest. Around the cathedral, the city's landmark and focal point, the film portrays people in a wide variety of lifestyles and provides insights into the city's inner workings - both in front of and behind the scenes. Ulm is a city of contrasts. It is manageable, in that sense definitely Swabian province, but far from provincial. Above all, however, the city on the Danube is a research and business location bursting with self-confidence. What makes the small city of Ulm with its 120,000 inhabitants tick? Where do people work, where do they live and where do they live? Who provides the warm flat, who the light? What happens at night on the Danube, behind the walls of Wilhelmsburg, and where does the rubbish end up? The documentary shows how the city functions in its infrastructure. Multifaceted portraits of Ulm citizens come together to form a comprehensive picture of Ulm and its little sister Neu-Ulm on the other side of the Danube. Where can one grasp what is "Ulmish"? The documentary begins at dawn and traces a fictitious daily routine into the night. In 90 minutes, it explores the nature and mentality of the people who, between Swabian sobriety and a penchant for global players, have developed their own identity. In between, the film repeatedly provides surprising insights into how things have grown historically or where and how impulses of change were triggered. The film starts at 5 o'clock in the morning, when the stalls of the weekly market are being set up. We accompany the bus driver through the morning rush hour and drive fresh milk from the foot of the Alb to the city, while in the Zaiser bakery the carrot is made according to a medieval recipe. The film makes a stop at the restorer who fights for the preservation of the stones on the cathedral tower and looks behind the scenes of a gallery owner in the fishermen's quarter. We shed light on the work at the container railway station, at the Böfinger Halde hydroelectric power station, and visit the ditch houses and the waste-to-energy plant. In the course of the film chronicle, the camera accompanies the work of an undertaker, the team coach of the Ulm basketball team before the most important game of the season and. Finally, in the afternoon we go to Friedrichsau to see the paddlers on the Danube, to a researcher in the science city who generates energy from fuel cells with hydrogen. In the evening we take a look behind the walls of Wilhelmsburg, where the costume designer is working for the "Aida" performance, while a sound artist captures the sound of the cathedral bells. We also accompany a maths teacher who lives out his passion for costume play in the late evening and go on a search for bats with a biologist on the banks of the Danube. In impressive aerial shots and dense images, the SWR documentary shows that Ulm has more than just the highest church tower in the world. We experience the Danube city as a visionary.