Stollen

Is tradition the highest honour or the greatest misfortune? - That's what people in the village of Pöhla are arguing about.

Despite the devastating health consequences, mining traditions are still kept alive in the Erzgebirge 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. With the closure of the last (uranium) mines in 1992, which irreversibly shaped the country and its people for 800 years, people were forced to build up a new tourist identity.

Especially during Advent, the "Christmas Land" combines old traditions and economic interest - whether baking stollen, singing together at the Mettenschicht in the mine or performing the Christmas mass. However, behind the peaceful appearance lies hard work.

In the field of tension between the nomination as a world cultural heritage site and the commissioning of a pilot plant for the mining of tin and tungsten, STOLLEN tells of this special time of the year above and below ground - and thus draws the psychogram of a region which today is struggling for its identity.