PAR EX. EBENTHAL
21 min 33
2004
b&w
German w/ English sbt
Music: Helge Hinteregger
Trumpett: Franz Hautzinger
A documentary about the relationship of farmers to their farmhouse and their land in the suburbs of growing cities, drawn from the example of Ebenthal, a suburb of Klagenfurt in Austria.
How do farmers manage to keep their land and farm when the city nearby is growing? How does urbanisation affect the landscape? Why do these people still live there?
In Austria, as everywhere, the cities are “eating” the countryside. Ebenthal is a village in Carinthia, near Klagenfurt, almost on the border with Slovenia. 2O years ago, there was one farm in the whole village, today Ebenthal is part of Klagenfurt’s suburbs and commercial zone.
I went to three farms in Ebenthal. In the first, the farmer, a woman who is 80 years old, is still living, though not working any more. The second farm is run by a young farmer who is struggling to preserve it. The last farm has become a holiday house.