Winter Nomads
Manuel von Sturler makes his directorial debut with new documentary movie Winter Nomads which is set in his native Switzerland.
The movie looks at the dying nomad culture and plays at the BFI London Film Festival later this week. We caught up with the director to chat about the movie and his experience of that lifestyle.
- You new movie is Winter Nomads so what interested you in the subject matter and made you want to make this film?
I went on a long trip around the world with my family before going to home to Switzerland.
And one morning I looked out of the window and saw these nomads in Switzerland with this whole flock of sheep and I just wanted to know how this was possible.
- So how did you go about incorporating your way into their world?
I couldn’t help myself I just felt like I had to tell their story. So I went to see them everyday and they did except me.
By getting into their world I got a different way of looking at my country as I had a very different viewpoint - which was their viewpoint. They understood that to.
- So how open were they for you to come into their world and experience their lifestyle?
They are use to having people come and see them but they are not use to having someone stay for so long (laughs).
So I spent a long time with them and while it is my job to observe I also have to keep my distance and so they realised that I wasn’t going to be intrusive and I think that that made them more willing to except me.
When they realised that I was able to spend the night outdoors with them that was a big change as well - it was a big moment.
- When I think of Switzerland I think of the banking system or chocolate so what do you hope people will take away from this movie when they see it? Did you want to paint another view of Switzerland?
It is not really about Switzerland as it has screened all over the world and people respond to it wherever it goes. So it has got universal things in it and it has lots of different layers to it.
The movie raises questions about out lifestyle and out comforts and our relationship with nature so it makes people think about their own lives.
Everybody takes away something different when they see the movie but a lot of people do think ‘yeah, I am going to change my life’ - whether or not they do is another matter. But it has lots and lots of different things going on.
- You said earlier that making this movie changed the way that your viewed your own country so just how did it change your perspective?
In every country you find traditions that are clinging on and what I found since I made the film is I have seen a lot of other films about nomadism all over the world and what is coming out of all of these movies is nomadism is disappearing.
The fact that living in place is actually quite new while nomadism is more ancient but we are seeing the end of that.
And I find that quite disturbing that some of the old ways are disappearing completely and something new is taking its place. So that is a big big change.
Then there is the whole aspect of our relationship to food because most people who buy their meat in the supermarket there is an industry process that we are not connected to.
But in the film you see that it is craft raising these sheep - a lot of audiences are quite shocked because the lambs are going to get eaten; but that is what meat is.
The nomads have a huge flock of sheep and they take them to places throughout the winter to graze so they can fatten them up and then they select the fattest ones and they are then taken away.
By the end of the movie there are only about fifty sheep left from the eight hundred that they start off with. Lots of people do find this very shocking because you do develop a relationship with these sheep throughout the film.
- It seems like a very difficult life and you really do see Carole wrestle with that throughout the film…
A lot of young people say that they would love to do this but they have a very utopian idea of sleeping out under the stars.
There are two shepherds in the film there is Pasquale who is in his early fifties and then there is Carole, who is in her late twenties and started doing this travelling when she was twenty two.
It takes four months to travel around while the sheep graze and she has done three complete stretches and you see her wrestling with it because it isn’t easy.
But she really wants to do it and she is overcoming the problems and shedding her idealist fantasy and getting to grips with what it is really about. She is a shining example who was idealistic but who is wresting with the reality of this life.
So you could take that as an example of someone who is really working hard and dealing with the nuts and bolts of something and put it in a different context.
The BFI London Film Festival runs 10 - 21 October
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw