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CROSS OVER

By Thomas TIELSCH

Documentary - Completed 1996

Via regional music and rituals of the German speaking area's southern border, the film approaches the question of cultural identity.

- Year of production
- 1996
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- GERMANY, SWITZERLAND
- Languages
- SWISS-GERMAN, SLOVENIAN, GERMAN
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Thomas TIELSCH
- Writer(s)
- Thomas TIELSCH, Niels BOLBRINKER
- Producer(s)
- Karin KOCH (Dschoint Ventschr)
- Synopsis
- The filmmaker's route follows the course of the Rhine, the oldest route leading from the North to Italy. He takes a look at the urban network of the Carnival cliques in Basel: a submarine of fools, so to speak, which surfaces once a year and eventually explodes. He arrives to an Austrian village whose inhabitants still spoke only one generation ago Slovenian dialect with each other. He visits the town of Linz, where folk music mixes with the pounding of the steelworks. Turning back, with homeless companions, he's looking for paradise in the Appenzell: to hear the noises of country dwellers and the sounds of modern times. Rural workers' songs, as well as urban country music in Basel. A polka for three electric guitars. Improvisation and ritual.