The second film takes us into the forest towns of Sandberg, Waldberg and Langenleiten in the low mountain ranges of the Rhön region in the centre of Germany, which is also known as the "land of open vistas" as it represents an open cultural landscape shaped by human use over several centuries. The three villages were the last ones to be built in the region. The houses stand close together along large main roads. The back gardens, filled with fruit and herbs, frame each village like a protective wall. No one has ever been rich here. The land is barren and can barely feed the people. They always had to use their imagination to find alternative ways of earning money.

In 1949, Josef Holzheimer visited his hometown in the forest for the last time. Like many others, he had left in his youth to emigrate to the USA, where he made his fortune. He made a colour film about his last visit home that gives a unique insight into a lost rural world. Die Walddörfer der Rhön tracks the remaining traces of this fascinating forgotten world. How much of it is still there in the Röhn?

This film from the serial Bilder einer Landschaft (landscape portraits of a landscape) takes us to a place "between heaven and hell" - The Tennengebirge Massif - a real Alpine gem situated in the Northern calcareous Alps south of Salzburg in Austria. The massif is a huge block of limestone with endless steep slopes on all sides, a huge karstic plateau and the highest amount of caves in the Alps. We get to know the colourful features that make this place quite unique, from the region's culture to its economy, from mountaineering to natural history. We meet lamas that are used as pack animals because the plateau region is a real desert during the summer. In this "Swiss cheese" landscape any water immediately disappears into its many holes (open joints, shafts and caves). We are taken to dizzy heights with top climber Albrecht Precht and enter the world’s biggest ice cave. Jürgen Eichinger and his team have captured spectacular images and moods in this empire of darkness.