Olanda

A film by Bernd Schoch. In Romanian with German and English subtitles.

A sprawling mycelium. The starry sky over the Romanian Carpathians. The first two images introduce the dimensions that are at the core of Olanda: details and fine structures on the one hand, constellations and the bigger picture on the other. The focus is on a seasonal asset of the area – the mushroom. Amongst people it is the foragers who are nearest to them and the focus of the film is on them: on walks through the forest, in the tent camp, during car rides and conversations. From here it follows the rhizome-like ramifications that continue to branch out in the form of money: to local and international merchants, to an improvised shoe market in a clearing, to gambling among colleagues. The film tells of these trading cycles by assuming a mushroom-like structure without ever losing its centre of thought. Beyond an analysis of economic structures, however, it is also the sensual document of a rhythm of everyday life in the forest, as experienced by foragers as the first link in the recycling chain. In the cinema, it can be experienced as an audiovisual mushroom-trip into the magical world of the Carpathian forests.