Myosotis
Two representatives from the electricity company try to persuade Marie Schlatter that she will get an attractive price for her farm. The valley in the Swiss mountains where she has always lived will disappear under the water when a dam is completed for a hydro-electricity project. This short film makes vividly palpable the emotions of an inevitable goodbye.
The director of this film, Michael Schwendinger, made it as part of his studies at the film academy in Zurich. His source of inspiration was the growth in economic prosperity in the 1950s which had a completely different impact on city dwellers than on mountain communities. For many farming families, what was sold as being an opportunity to build a new life, meant the loss of familiar surroundings and future prospects. Leaving behind one’s homeland, the smells, the colours, the sounds and the memories is hard. Your head becomes filled with images you want to hold on to, yet lose.
Myosotis is the Latin name for forget-me-nots.