ALPTRAUM - The last great adventure

To me, the alp always was an allegory for a peculiar kind of freedom, even though I couldn’t tell why. Of course, there is this incredibly beautiful scenery of a life on the alp, which somehow accompanies all of us in our imagination: being in an alp cottage, alone or in a small team, mountains, the chime of cowbells and maybe, from far away, the sound of a brook.
But still: How is the hard work and heavy responsibility of a herdsman compatible with the feeling of freedom? This question may be one of the reasons why I went on a alp with my once best friend Robin – with a camera in my pocket to document our life up there.

Already in mid-summer, everything had changed: Endless arguments, rain lasting for weeks and many dead animals (too many to show all of them in the movie), in addition sickness and permanent excessive demands. There was no space anymore for dreams. I more and more perceived the alp as a prison, from which I cannot escape.

First thing after our return I stowed away the tapes with the recordings in a closet. I didn’t have the slightest desire to see these pictures again – too close was the memory of our failure as herdsmen, friends and humans.
Only some time later, when I once again got annoyed about another cliché-ridden Alp-movie, I made the decision: producing a movie from the material we collected. A documentation which extends the image of the alp by the possibility of disharmony and captivity and by the awareness that there is always confrontation where (relatively) untamed nature meets humans. Confrontation with our limits, our insignificance – where again the potential to another freedom lies.