Schattenland: Reise nach Masuren

1h 28min | Documentary | 2006 (Germany) | PAL

With Schattenland Volker Koepp and his long-time cameraman Thomas Plenert take us on a trip to the north-east of Poland to Masuria - probably the best known landscape of former East Prussia. Encounters with people who appear to be stranded away from the tourist areas of Masuria: farmers who use the short summers in the supposed idyll to wring grain from the barren soil. Ukrainians who were forcibly relocated after the Second World War and who moved to their old homeland after Poland’s accession to the EU. And fishermen who also fish for some of the proverbial 3000 lakes in winter. To this day, Masuria has remained sparsely populated and, despite tourism, is one of the poorest areas in Europe, with the border regions to Kaliningrad in northern East Prussia particularly affected. And the traces of history are still visible today: the Thirty Years’ War, plague, famines, Tartar incursions, Napoleonic wars and Russian occupations. Battlefields of both world wars of the 20th century. In 1945, southern East Prussia came to Poland. And again and again disagreement about languages ​​and nationalities: “Where the culture ends, Masuria begins to live.” A journey through Masuria - border landscape in the shadow of history.