Truckstop Geiselwind
Days And Nights At Europe‘s Biggest Truck Stop Haven
For Truck Pilots the main targets of their thinking aren‘t Barcelona, Paris or Berlin. Their cordinate system swings around places like Ellwangen, Sittensen or Geiselwind. Thousands of trucks and their drivers are constantly on the hunt for overnight parking and for safe sleeping places and – if they are lucky – for hot showers and a meal. Truck drivers are the modern nomads of the just-in-time era. Truck Stops are the harbours of modern times.
The film gets to know a few of these people in permanent transit, from Turkey to United Kingdom, from Siberia to South of Spain. It‘s a lonely, exhausting lifestyle, with merciless bureaucrats and ruthless shipping companies constantly on their back – but most drivers wouldn‘t want to do anything else for a living. Still it seems to have the air of freedom, to drive long distance on your own, with 30 tons of freight behind you. A film between melancholy and horse powers, romantic lonesome riding, police controls and amphetamines and the threat of having an accident around the next bend.
Geiselwind is a village with 800 souls, located at the Autobahn A3, half way between Nuremberg and Würzburg, in northern Bavaria. At night more than 3.000 drivers park here, where the smell of Diesel and tyre gum is everywhere, and the coziest place is a driver‘s cab where you go to sleep, and think of the people you love.
The film gets to know a few of these people in permanent transit, from Turkey to United Kingdom, from Siberia to South of Spain. It‘s a lonely, exhausting lifestyle, with merciless bureaucrats and ruthless shipping companies constantly on their back – but most drivers wouldn‘t want to do anything else for a living. Still it seems to have the air of freedom, to drive long distance on your own, with 30 tons of freight behind you. A film between melancholy and horse powers, romantic lonesome riding, police controls and amphetamines and the threat of having an accident around the next bend.
Geiselwind is a village with 800 souls, located at the Autobahn A3, half way between Nuremberg and Würzburg, in northern Bavaria. At night more than 3.000 drivers park here, where the smell of Diesel and tyre gum is everywhere, and the coziest place is a driver‘s cab where you go to sleep, and think of the people you love.
Facts
Credits
Written and directed by
Petra Höfer
Freddie Röckenhaus
Producers:
Carola Sayer
Francesca D‘Amicis
DOP:
Thomas Schäfer
Editing:
Jörg Wegner
Editor at Radio Bremen Television:
Michael Geyer
A colourFIELD production, commissioned by Radio Bremen
