How do we live in Europe? What do we really know about our ‘fellow countrymen’? With its partners, Franco-German channel ARTE inaugurated an ambitious collection of twenty documentaries which explore the lives of various inhabitants of the European Union. Be they squatters, ministers, farmers or holidaymakers, they were followed by young film-makers from their country equipped only with a basic digital camera. These are entertaining portraits which both arouse our curiosity and encourage reflection, sometimes with a provocative and ironic tone.

Not every tourist who visits a Greek island falls in love with the way of life there to the point of looking for their soul mate. However, on Skyros, 15 German women have married goatherds, thus giving up the comfort of life in Northern Europe to embrace a dream made of hard toil, shared by men of few words and marked by the changing seasons. At the same time, at the other end of Europe, in the boreal landscapes kissed by the midnight sun where old American cars roam free, two couples share a sauna right in the middle of a lake, and talk about their place in the world. Their town may well have the highest suicide rate in Europe, offering no work or prospects for the future, but it is still their town, and they would not leave it for anything in the world..

Credits

Directed by

Marianna Economou & Annette Winblad

Co-writers:

Colin Luke

Produced by

Cie des phares et balises & MOISAIC FILMS (G.B), Arte G.E.I.E., BBC (G.B), TV2 (DK), YLE (FIN), NPS (P.B), TV4 (SUE)

Technical information

Copyright :

2000

Running time:

26 minutes

Broadcasts :

Arte (06/30/00), BBC (G.B), TV2 (DK), YLE (FIN), NPS (NL), TV4 (SWE)