wocomoDOCS | In the European Union borders still exist - Divided border villages on the Danish-German border @wocomodocs | Uploaded March 2023 | Updated October 2024, 15 hours ago.
It was to be the Europe of regions – and then they built border fences right in the middle of one. This is a warm-hearted tale of a small border community who suddenly finds themselves on one of the scalding political stages of Western Europe today. And all because wild hogs don’t understand the meaning of a border.
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Borders are often both tragic and comical - at the same time. And the border as a phenomenon has a huge impact on how we describe and understand Europe right now. We meet a group of people who live on the border between Germany and Denmark – a border which has been invisible since the Schengen agreement. One morning Ruth, Thorsten, Jakob and Henrik awake to a strange sight: a tall green metal fence has been mounted in their backyards. It is on the crossing to a neighboring farm, separating a main house from its farmstead, and even a mailbox from its front door. The fence rams a pole straight through a grave of a beloved dead service dog who was safely resting on its owner's property. On the border where people from both sides have considered themselves belonging to the same family, a politically inflamed wild boar fence was raised, like a mythical wall against the Europe of dreams. Everyday life is turned inside out and upside down and into an absurd tragi-comic experience for these down-to-earth and friendly originals, who live in a radius of 10 km from each other. And when the fence against the plague was finished, the corona virus, which no fence can keep out, arrived.
They suddenly experience firsthand in each their own way what arbitrary transnational border policies can mean on a very real, very local scale. Together with the locals, the film raises questions about the nature of a border and what it means to be "a border person", and it explores how past and presence quite naturally interweave when you live your run-of-the-mill life on top of a historical and political hot potato of a border. For the erection of the fences is not only synonymous with separation, it also means withdrawal. This withdrawal, which has caused so much hatred and destruction in Europe, is here again. Nationalistic, xenophobic and patriotic feelings are resurfacing around this fear of the other, which the COVID-19 crisis has only amplified.
All this life organized around the border on both sides is dependent on the political and social upheavals that their countries are facing.
Original title - Os på grænsen (There is a Border in My Backyard)
Written and directed by Jens Loftager
© 2021, Licensed by First Hand Films
#documentary #border #eu #germany #denmark
It was to be the Europe of regions – and then they built border fences right in the middle of one. This is a warm-hearted tale of a small border community who suddenly finds themselves on one of the scalding political stages of Western Europe today. And all because wild hogs don’t understand the meaning of a border.
Subscribe to wocomoDOCS: goo.gl/sBmGkp
Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/wocomo
Borders are often both tragic and comical - at the same time. And the border as a phenomenon has a huge impact on how we describe and understand Europe right now. We meet a group of people who live on the border between Germany and Denmark – a border which has been invisible since the Schengen agreement. One morning Ruth, Thorsten, Jakob and Henrik awake to a strange sight: a tall green metal fence has been mounted in their backyards. It is on the crossing to a neighboring farm, separating a main house from its farmstead, and even a mailbox from its front door. The fence rams a pole straight through a grave of a beloved dead service dog who was safely resting on its owner's property. On the border where people from both sides have considered themselves belonging to the same family, a politically inflamed wild boar fence was raised, like a mythical wall against the Europe of dreams. Everyday life is turned inside out and upside down and into an absurd tragi-comic experience for these down-to-earth and friendly originals, who live in a radius of 10 km from each other. And when the fence against the plague was finished, the corona virus, which no fence can keep out, arrived.
They suddenly experience firsthand in each their own way what arbitrary transnational border policies can mean on a very real, very local scale. Together with the locals, the film raises questions about the nature of a border and what it means to be "a border person", and it explores how past and presence quite naturally interweave when you live your run-of-the-mill life on top of a historical and political hot potato of a border. For the erection of the fences is not only synonymous with separation, it also means withdrawal. This withdrawal, which has caused so much hatred and destruction in Europe, is here again. Nationalistic, xenophobic and patriotic feelings are resurfacing around this fear of the other, which the COVID-19 crisis has only amplified.
All this life organized around the border on both sides is dependent on the political and social upheavals that their countries are facing.
Original title - Os på grænsen (There is a Border in My Backyard)
Written and directed by Jens Loftager
© 2021, Licensed by First Hand Films
#documentary #border #eu #germany #denmark
