What Is Freedom To You?
Written on August 5th, 2023 by Roman Freeman
What is Freedom, actually?
Of course, there are vocabulary definitions and all kinds of biases surrounding us, when it comes to freedom. You might think money means freedom, for example.
But does it really?
I wanted to find out what freedom really means to people that live around me. So, I hit the streets of Potsdam, Germany with my camera and a directional microphone, to find out what people think.
What is Freedom?
What is freedom to you, Germany?
It was my first street interview kind of operation. Not gonna lie: it’s intimidating to approach people you don’t know (introverts will understand). More so, carrying a big-*ss camera and doing it in the country, where citizens are known to be extremely concerned about privacy.
Luckily for me, I didn’t get shouted at even once (what I was afraid of the most). Maybe, because I used common sense and didn’t start rolling until I will have gotten a consent for being filmed.
I did get rejected of course. For the aforementioned privacy concerns, as well as people just being busy, it was in the middle of a work week after all.
One guy though, asked if he’s gonna get paid for it, lol. After finding out that he wasn’t, he refused.
In the end of the day I was surprised to get a wide variety of answers: from famous quotes, to simple, but very much to the point answers.
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
As a bonus I’ve added subtitles, so you can follow along and learn some German or English this way too!
Freedom in Ukraine
Originally, I intended to film more in various German cities, asking this and other questions. I even started filming a bit in Berlin but never published due to lack of material and I moved out of Germany soon after.
What can I say, life happens.
But during my visit to Ukraine in winter 2023-2024, I realized it’s a good opportunity to ask about freedom there, especially given the country is fighting (still, at the time of writing) for its freedom and existence.
It was harder to film there. After years of war, people are exhausted and it’s understandable.
Many people refused being interviewed: you never know what tomorrow brings, who is going to control the city and how the video is going to be used by russians if they find and watch it. They don’t need many excuses to put you down in a “pit” after all.
Besides, I was busy with some other things while in Ukraine, so didn’t interview nearly as many people as I would’ve liked. And only when I was editing later, I realized I could use some more B-roll too, actually.
Nevertheless, here is my update on the same topic from Ukraine:
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
Freedom in Japan
Fast forward some months later, I also asked the same question in Japan. I filmed it in Tokyo, in one day. Luckily, I had a friend help me with the translation.
To my surprise, one of the first answers I got was “there is no freedom”. Which is very philosophical, if you ask me.
Another surprising thing was that I didn’t get nearly as many rejections as I was prepping myself for, even with my very limited Japanese. From yongsters and construction workers to masters of calligraphy and even idol music band members: I was happy to hear all their interesting answers, and now you can too.
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
At this point, it looked like it’s becoming a series, so I created a playlist here.
Freedom in Korea
In Korea, I took a different approach and asked people from all over the country as I traveled around it a bit in the fall of 2024.
I tried to talk to some servicemen from the military and approached a couple of cops too, but all of them refused being on camera citing being on the duty.
Also, it has proven to be a challenge to get older folks to speak out, although I did meet a couple of very interesting characters and some of them spoke English really well.
Despite that, I got some interesting answers this time around as well. With an interesting bonus too: one of the guys I approached in Seoul turned out to be an artist from the band Animal Divers!
This is my video from Korea:
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
