Film: Counting Sheep at the 22nd Galway Film Fleadh
Counting Sheep, a documentary by Romanian director Dieter Auner, is on this Friday 9th July in the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, as part of the 22nd Galway Film Fleadh. Dieter spent the better part of five years constructing this tale of Romanian sheep farmers, living among them in some of Europe’s most remote landscape. From the programme:
Counting Sheep 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.
I chatted to Dieter briefly today, and he told me about the documentary. There are no interviews, no voice-overs, no pieces to camera. He tried to let the story tell itself, to let the poetry of it recite its own tale. I put it to him it’s a fly on the wool documentary. He liked that.
Counting Sheep will be screened at 5pm this Friday 9th of July. Tickets are €7. Dieter will be attending the screening.
The 22nd Galway Film Fleadh opens tomorrow, and the full programme can be found here.
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