The 21-part documentary series ‚Worldly Possessions’ shows the variety of family life in our world. It is not the exotic or unusual that is at the heart of these portraits, but rather material possessions and the circumstances of life in various different corners of the world. The films concentrate on something which is not normally considered of importance: everyday life in the microcosm of a family. How do people live on a farm in Mali, in a small town in Greenland or in the slums of Salvador da Bahia? How important is a TV set for a family in Guatemala, how is the workload shared between a husband and wife in Hong Kong?

The families portrayed are the authors of their own stories. There is no commentary in these films. The family members talk of their worries and problems, share their dreams and their definitions of happiness. They offer a very personal insight into their world. In this way we are taken on an unusual journey around the world, a journey which focusses on people’s wishes and needs and thereby confronts us with the question of how we live our lives

Not so long ago they possessed two blankets, five spoons, six plates and one bowl. Now the only things left are a cooking pot und the clothes they’re wearing. A fire has destroyed the straw hut, in which the refugees Vianey and Radegonde lived with their three children for one year. In 1994 they had to leave Rwanda. From Tan-zania, where they found refuge, they were evicted in 2002. Since then they are on the run again. Along with 5000 other people from Rwanda they are waiting in camp Kibati in Uganda for their official recognition as refugees. None of the international assistance organizations supports these people until their status is clear. They even don’t have any official entitlement to receive water rations. Vianey works as a day laborer for the domestic farmers. After a long walk he reaches their fields, where the former public servant does his hard manual work. A green Banana shrub, worth half a dollar, is his wage per day. “We have given up to set ourselves a goal or to think about the future”, Vianey says.

Marie, Réme Jean-Francois, and five children live in the city of Jacmel at the southern coast of the country. Both are tailors. Even if Maria would sew during day and night, there wouldn’t be enough money to pay for food, school, electricity, and house repairs. Réme deals in planks on the side and and grows fruit on a small piece of land. They have water in Jacmel twice a week only. Then they fill as many containers as they can find. But at least they have an adequate power supply. For twelve years the family is building its own house. Finally, it is supposed to be finished in two years. Marie dreams of following her father to Miami, to work there making more money. While Réme hopes for better conditions in his own country. He dreams of a nice house, a big car, and a store of his own. He won’t give up his hope until he dies.

Until today Cambodia is suffering from the trauma caused by the leadership of the Khmer Rouges. “It was living like hell”, Ngob Ngét says. The teacher and his wife Sâm-Ol, who is a weaver, live with their five children, a grand child, and Sâm-Ol’s Father in a village of the province Takeo, south of Phnom Penh. On some days, when her daughters run the household, Sâm-Ol weaves six feet of silk. The retailer pays her a Dollar for it. Ngob Ngét has a monthly income of 15 Dollars as a teacher. So the rice fields are the real life savers. They give all of them enough to eat; the family can buy clothes and medicine, and they can afford to send their children to school. Although Ngob Ngét and Sâm-Ol still have to do without power and running water in their village, they don’t want to live anywhere else than in Cambodia.

Mike and Jan Rudeen live with their 12 year old daughter Olivia and 8 year old twins Chris and Ben in Denver, Colorado. In order to spend enough time with the children, Jan works at home as a freelance journalist. Mike on the other hand takes a daily drive to the Rocky Mountain News where he in a large open-space office answeres Customer questions and writes the Lifestyle column.
The family lives in the attractive green middle class suburb in the middle of town. Both the Bio- Supermarket and the children’s school are just around the corner. It as a struggle though, for the couple to keep up with the living standards of their middle class environ-ment. The cost of servicing the two old cars are a great worry, and they have already started saving for the future college education of their three children. They can not afford cable television- something the twins greatly hold against them who would, really like to watch Simpsons and Sponge Bob at the breakfast table.
Both Mike and Jan are outraged by the Presidents political steps taken after 11. September 2001. They, together with other members from Jan’s church, which lies very close to her heart, took part in the demonstration against the Irag-war.
The Rudeens are pretty much satisfied with their lives except for little Ben wishes himself a “million dollars” for his next birthday...

Close to all residents in the little town of Jwaneng are employed at the diamond mine. That is where Philip Tlou works as a Catering manager. He comes from humble beginnings and earned himself his current position through hard work. He is married to Boikhutso Tlou, who at first refused to take him as he wore shorts and a very silly hat. Today Philip describes her as the perfect wife and his pillar of support. Heavy heartedly Boikhutso has learned to live with the fact, that her husband also has three other children with another woman and raises them because the saying in setswana goes “the children belong to their father”.
The teenagers in the family have finished school and are trying their level best to establish careers. In general the youth is threatend by AIDS. As the HIV infection rate is soaring at 36%, 10% of the youth in Jwaneng are HIV positive. He has already buried three of his friends, 20 year old Pako reports, two were his age, one, a little younger. The times when the young buried the old are over he says.
Every two months the family pays a visit to their home village from which the father originates, this is where the catering manager keeps his cattle, without which, no motswana man can be considered a real man. Philp lives up in his village. This is where he was born and this is where he wishes to be buried. On the contrary his sons find the village life rather dull. No electricity, no running water and no place to go out to in the evenings, by walking about in the darkness one only risks stepping on snakes and scorpions.

Galja and Kostadin live with their two children in Veliko Tarnovo, a picturesque town of 70,000 inhabitants in the north of Bulgaria. Galja recently got a PhD in maths and teaches at the university. Her monthly wage of 190 euros forms the main part of the family income, which she augments by giving private lessons. Kostadin, whose hobbies include photography and writing poetry, teaches maths in a school in the Turkish area of town. Once a month the family visit the grandparents who live in the country. Their pensions are so small that they only manage to keep their heads above waters by relying on fruit and vegetables from their own garden. The family from town also stock their larder up with grandma’s preserves and this helps them to keep their household costs down. Svetljo, the 15 year-old son, is dreaming of a life as a computer programmer in Los Angeles. His sister Vassilena wants to travel to as many countries as possible. She is about to set off on her first trip to Germany, where she will spend four weeks picking apples and cherries somewhere between Leipzig and Dresden for a wage of 3,24 euros per hour.

The Wahiba-Desert in Sultanate of Oman: Muhammad al Mughairy lives here with his wife Salama and their eight children. The Mughairy tribe has been settled here for centuries. The family’s homestead is sur- rounded by dry palm twigs to provide some shade. All the water for the family as well as the livestock is brought in daily from the nearby settlement. The camels and goats along with the small date plantation are all the wealth of the family.
The beduines of Wahiba-Sands sell their camels even abroad to Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates. A successful race camel brings a lot of money. But the family does not show this off: A few pots and pans, some colourful carpets on the walls and in the sand.
The wealthy Sultanate provides modern schools all throughout the country. Even from the desert the children are brought to and fro by school bus and this possibility for education have given the Beduines the opportunity to combine a modern lifestyle with their desert tradition.
Rashid, the oldest son of the Al Mughairy family, runs a small camp where tourists can spend the night. He takes the guest reservations right on his mobile and meets his business partners regularly in the capital city of Muscat. Yet he always makes a point to return to the desert quickly, because, as he puts it, only in the desert there is peace and freedom.

A small village not far from Mumbay, on the western coast of the Indian Subcontinent: old spacious wooden houses surrounded by large gardens, tropical vegetation and a whole row of Hindu temples for the population of barely 4.500 inhabitants.
This is where Family Thosar is living – four generations in one house. Great-Grandpa, now 91 years old, used to travel the country with a mobile cinema, his son Prakash farms on a small plantage, growing coconut and banana. Prakash’ son, Prashant in turn makes a living reapairing the age old rikshas and motorbikes of the villagers. His wife Pranali works at the computer in a small shop which sells bottled gas. In her spare time Pranali takes lessons in classical singing. The Brahman family are strict vegetarians, religious rituals are an integral part of their daily routine and they have a great ease about them. Following the age old traditions not only the grandparents’ marriage was an arranged match, but also Pranali, now 27, met her husband only once before they were wedded. The parents do not doubt that also their own young son will later marry the match they chose for him. The entire family places great hope in the cheery 5-year old boy: he is to become a doctor and be the provider for his parents and grandparents.

Jaqueline and Jaime have three sons between 11 and 15 years of age. They live in Valparaiso, a picturesque Chilean seaport spreading over a number of hills stretched along the bay. All three boys attend a state school in which money is so scarce that the parents do a lot of the upkeep work themselves, like painting the walls and cleaning the toilets. The children spend their leisure time at the seaside, they go skating or try to make some money by juggling at the traffic lights. The children have followed in their parents footsteps in terms of political engagement: Victor runs his own website explaining the cruel facts of bullfighting. Matías agitates against Nike´s policy of letting children work in their sweatshops. The youngest, Raimundo, likes to go to a cemetery where he steals some fruit for his mother and himself. Jaqueline and Jaime got to know one another during the time of the Junta dictatorship.
Both were commited members of the socialist party. Their marriage was initially politically motivated, “but also somehow a love story”, as Jaqueline says. If she could make a wish? She would like to live in a country with mutual human respect and where the social contrasts would not be as big as in Chile.

Maria Joao and Henrique Costa and their children, the 12 year old Leonor and 7 year old Luís, live in the north of Portugal in the city of Porto, picturesquely located at the river Douro. Henrique is born here and really loves his town with its many bridges and romantic alleys. "Porto used to be a village and has grown to be a city", he says. A city with full size traffic problems, proudly bearing the label "cultural heritage of mankind".
Maria Joao and Henrique lead a marriage with equal rights. Having the more flexible working hours as an administrator at the academy of dramatic arts, Henrique takes charge of more of the daily chores than his wife. She works in a very demanding position as the head of a public library, but as important as Maria Joao considers her work, she also places great value in the family. For her it is the crucial stronghold in life.
Even though Henrique and Maria both make their contributions to the family budget their total income is not luxurious, but still they don’t need to be stingy. In the first place, they spend their money on the children’s education. Both Leonor and Luís visit a private music school. Little Luís is still practicing at the xylophone, his sister Leonor already plays the harp for some years. Apart from her English and French lessons she also takes some German. Though she admits that it still sounds “quite funny”.

A small village in the mountains of Madagascar where the air is cool and the soil is poor. This is the home of the Zafmaniri people. They live in all wooden houses which are built without using a single nail and bear ornamental carvings. There is sufficient water, but the agricultural yield is barely enough to sustain the families. However, there is no other source of income for Eugene who lives here in Antoetra together with his wife Augustine and their six children.
Augustine did not have a say with the choice of her husband. She had her first child at the age of 15. Celestine, Augustine’s mother-in-law, thinks that the fact that today still all the decisions in the family are made by the men alone is behind the times: men should learn to listen to their wives.
Augustine’s thoughts constantly circle around why life is such and around the daily struggle for money. Meanwhile her son Odilo dreams of one day flying in an airplane to see Madagascar from above. At the age of 12 Odilo has already quit school in order to earn a few cents by chopping firewood.
Hardly anyone in the village of Antoetra can afford shoes. But on the occasion of the national holiday everybody gets dressed up as much as they are able to. The villagers have a torch procession, slaughter some of the Zebu cattle to distribute the meat in the community and they sing the national anthem in a three part choir.

Popna and Monga do not know their own ages, but they do know that 4 of their 12 children died before they were even given names. The family lives in a village in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea not far from the town of Mount Hagen. The soil is fertile, practically all their food is self-grown. Apart from the farming most of the family members have a job in town. Popna for instance is a caretaker at a school. But his earnings there are not even enough for the old man to buy a mattress or a blanket. The women bear the full burden of the household work on top of their jobs. That’s what they are “bought” for by the men: for a wealthy man the bride price which is negotiated with the woman’s family can be as high as 10.000 Euro plus 200 pigs.
Clan wars still exist today. Sometimes a small quarrel or a traffic accident is enough of a trigger. The clan remains to be at the center of everyones life. The entire clan also pays the deceased their last respects: The mourning ritual takes a whole week.
On the day of independance the cultural heritage is particularly of great importance: The children paint their faces and dressed in the traditional costumes they perform the various dances of the country’s different tribes.