Heinz Reifenauer

The Macedonian Soltana is the last original inhabitant of Europe. She still remembers the first automobile: she thought it was a terrible monster. She is neither capable of reading nor writing. At the age of 18, her family takes her to Austria, where she has the opportunity to marry a rich man. No use to think twice about it - Soltana obeys. As a woman, she says, she has no alternative. In Soltana's life no big events took place. But those who look closely are bound to discover tremendous openness and vitality in the small steps of her life.

Michael Pilz's 285-minute Himmel and Erde is an essay film or an ethnographic documentary. It contemplates the finite lot of individuals as part of a continuum of human experience in the natural world. Himmel und Erde, translatable as Heaven and Earth, was recorded between 1979 and 1982. The documentary invites the viewer to contemplate the disruptive effects of technology on economic and social ties through circumscribed vignettes of village life which are oft repeated either as recycled footage or variations on a theme.

In beautiful pictures and few words, the longing of two outsiders for a different, better life is told.