The “Dark Diaries” give the public a brutally honest insight into the daily routine of party chairman Christian Lindner and the Free Democrats’ election campaign, even in their darkest moments. In a political culture, where everybody puts oneself in the best light, the Free Deomcrats did the opposite and published their story about fail, fights and arguments from an insider-perspective across all channels. The film provides the opportunity to look behind the scenes of of an election campaign. Thereby, the campaign becomes a 360° experience for the audience, rather than just another election campaign.

The “Dark Diaries” is a 14.000 pieces documentary by the renowned war and crises photographer Daniel Rosenthal, which offers the opportunity to experience Christian Lindner and the Free Democrats’ election campaign in 360° on all channels. Especially real-time formats brought the whole process and the candidate directly to the people. The campaign connected the politcal party with the audience on a different level.

The Social Media campaign generated more than 125million impressions with more interactions than all of the other parties as a whole. The viral success of the campaign lead to Christian Lindner beeing the most-googled politician and highlights the outstanding success.

Therefore, the “Dark Diaries” became more than a documentation an sparked a discussion about politics and authenticity. In the end the small party reached a historic result and proved that the truth can pay off.

2017 is a year, where major parts of the German public lost trust in politics. In times of fake news and a new age of populism, nobody knows what’s real in politics anymore. The Free Democrats wanted to change that. They were going to run a campaign in Germany’s biggest federal state – North Rhine Westphalia. The overall aim was to reposition the party according to the new overall strategy and win more votes.