Off the Beaten Track, which has been selected for the International Film Festival, Rotterdam, chronicles a world, untouched for centuries, struggling with profound change. Since joining the EU, Romanians are free to work as agricultural labourers and earn more in one month than a year in their traditional occupation, as shepherds.
Against this changing landscape, Dieter Auner’s documentary introduces us to Albin Creta, a teenage Romanian shepherd from Northern Transylvania. We experience a year of his life as he works shepherding, cutting hay, making cheese and dipping sheep. In this sensitive documentary, the drama is observed in the minute: the purchase of a car, the selling of lambs, the departure for Germany, the dark nights on the mountain and the day to day routines. Albin and his family adapt to each trial, changing to meet the new demands asked of them.
One can feel the loving attention to detail to the world of the rural Romanians – who seem entirely oblivious to the documentary production documenting the small changes in their lives. Small changes, yet the harbingers of a new world.
Galway Film Fleadh
Dieter Auner will attend the screening
With Support from the Romanian Cultural Institute in London
