KANT – THE EXPERIMENT OF FREEDOM

Immanuel Kant, born in Königsberg in 1724, was already one of the key Enlightenment thinkers during his lifetime and is still one of the most influential figures in Western philosophy today. Kant wanted to explain the world, but at the same time he was aware that he himself – like all human beings – only had a limited capacity for understanding. He never left his native Königsberg, learning all he knew about world affairs from the books he had sent over to him from England and France. And everything he knew about people was the result of the relentless observation of his environment and his own emotional life. He combined all this knowledge into a complex system of concepts, categories and matrices. The result is a moral philosophy whose universal validity he tested constantly. Marking three hundred years since his birth – in April 2024 – the film shows for the first time just how closely Kant was connected to his native town of Königsberg, which is taken back to the 18th century using sophisticated animation techniques. Many of the pressing questions that plagued people 300 years ago are posed anew in the film, in the face of the climate catastrophe and war in Europe.