Schafskälte

(Summer Frost)
by August Pflugfelder
44', Digital Betacam, Germany, 2007

Of three brothers, Peter is the only one to have moved to the valley. He has found a job, a girlfriend – a “normal” life. Renate and Ferdinand, on the other hand, live and work on their parents’ farm, in the Austrian Alps, and have no intention of leaving, even though the farm doesn’t sustain them. Like many other young people from the mountains, they find themselves caught between their desire to carry on the work and traditions of their parents and the difficulties of a life that seems out of time. Ferdinand complains about the lack of young women who accept the idea of sharing his life as a mountain dweller and farmer. The search for a girlfriend becomes, for these young men, a metaphor for the search for a reason to continue doing this work. They spend their nights dizzy from loud music under the big tent and speeding around drunk in their cars. And the next day, disappointed, the put on the typical mountain clothing and go to mass, where prayers are said “that the young people find their way. …”

August Pflugfelder
Born in 1976 in Prien am Chiemsee, in Bavaria, he studied graphic design and photography at the Fachhochschule in Augsburg and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He has worked as a photographer and designer, and since 2003 studies documentary filmmaking at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film in Munich.