Around a third of young people from Generation Z and Generation Y (Millennials) don’t consider themselves to be religious, placing the most recent generations at the “top”, as the least religious ever.

However, 8 out of 10 adolescents from Generations Z and Y say they believe in “God or a universal spirit” and describe experiencing a sense of “strong gratitude” and “inner peace”.

Additionally, these generations are also highly active in searching for a purpose and are interested in areas of knowledge and practice that go beyond the physical world (meditation, yoga, mindfulness, etc.).

 

Investigating the theme of spirituality in the younger generations through the simple interpretation of answers to questionnaires about religion is no longer sufficient to describe what is going on.

 

- Are young people simply abandoning organised religions, or replacing them with another type (or types) of spirituality?

- If so, what is the impact of this transformation on them and on society?

- What does spirituality, faith and God mean for the new generations?

 

Addressing these issues is one of the main goals of the documentary Oh My God!, but with a very different approach: it will be young people themselves who will be investigating this subject and sharing the answers with us.

Through the POV of a young filmmaker, we will be following groups of young people from organised religions and others who haven’t chosen this course, to capture the differences and similarities of their searches.

With Portugal as the background – a modern country where a half of young people are considered to be Catholic – and using video, a highly relatable format for young people, we will capture the new generations’ search for purpose and, with the greatest impartiality possible, present a narrative which allows viewers to construct their own conclusion.