Durchfahrtsland

Remote Area

Alexandra Sell

Germany 2005

Download Catalogue (PDF)

The streetcar takes just twenty minutes from the Cologne Cathedral to the foothills – one of those areas one drives through to take an excursion elsewhere. Squeezed between Cologne and Bonn, neither city nor countryside but urban sprawl, faceless, interchangeable. The area takes on a mysterious charm only at night, when the oil refineries on the Rhine glow spookily. But for the people who live here, the foothills are the middle of the world and they want to make a place for themselves here. That's not always easy for the film's four protagonists: Hans Wilhelm Dümmer, the pastor of two neighboring villages that have feuded for centuries: his mission is to bring them to-gether; Sophia Rey, the self-publishing foothills detective story writer, whose books remain unread in her home village; Mark Basinsky, the youngest and most delicate member of a bachelors' association: his dream is to study fashion design in Milan; Giuseppe Scolaro, the passionate chairman of a carnival club. "Remote Area" is a documentary regional film about the foreign world at our doorstep.

"I told the protagonists of 'Remote Area' very honestly what my film is about. And yet there is always the possibility that some expected a kind of culture feature report. That worries me. But I did everything to protect my protagonists' dignity when shooting and later when editing. Protecting their private sphere was important to me, especially with Pastor Dümmer, who is already a public personage and the object of constant curiosity anyway." Alexandra Sell

Production: 2Pilots Filmproduktion GbR (Cologne), ZDF – Das kleine Fernsehspiel

Screenplay: Alexandra Sell

Cinematographer: Justyna Feicht, Henning Drechsler

Sound: Caroline Cochius

Soundtrack: Kreidler

Editor: Daniela Drescher

Format/screen ratio: 35mm, 1:1.85, Color

Running time: 91 min., 25 frames/sec.

Language: German