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Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia of all time – by looking at the inner life of Wikipedia, the documentary deals with issues of perspective, representation and Western-centrism. 

In 2001, Jimmy Wales created the first entry on Wikipedia: "Hello world". Today, 20 years later, Wikipedia contains more than 50 million articles, English Wikipedia alone has more than 300 million clicks per day. 


Wikipedia begins with a promise: knowledge production, which for millennia was in the hands of elites, is to be radically democratized. Anyone can contribute, regardless of education level or background. Is the online project a utopia come true?

The film gives a plattform to the people behind the façade of the website: the “Wikipedians”. In the film, authors from Egypt, Germany, Ghana, South Africa, Tunisia and the USA have their say. 

Wikipedia can be seen as a mirror of a society in which old perspectives are faltering. Women and people from the global South are still underrepresented on Wikipedia, but more and more authors no longer want to accept this status quo.

Twenty years after its founding, has THE WIKIPEDIA PROMISE been kept? Is today’s Wikipedia conservative or radical? Is it an online re-launch of Eurocentric knowledge production or a truly global project?

  • Year
    2021
  • Runtime
    52 minutes
  • Language
    English, French, German
  • Country
    Germany
  • Director
    Lorenza Castella
  • Producer
    André Schäfer