WILDENRANNA

Wildenranna lies in lower Bavaria, not far from Austria and the Czech Republic, in an area of natural beauty famed for its gently rolling hills, wide valleys and native forests. It's home to nine hundred people, has a church and a local bar. Winters are hard, summers are short and cold. The local industries are agriculture and timber.

The 1930s saw a wave of emigration to the United States as people sought their fortune overseas. Many returned, unable to sever their ties with home. As the locals say, this feeling of belonging, of being together, was always something special to Wildenranna and still is.

The film's author and director, Alice Agneskirchner, goes in search of this special feeling of home and heart. In Wildenranna everybody has their tale to tell. The people take life's many struggles and setbacks as they come, laconically, sometimes ironically, with a smile and tear on their furrowed faces. Places like Wildenranna will soon be a thing of the past as life there becomes more and more like life everywhere else. And films like Wildenranna will be all that remains to document what once was.