AllMovie

Director Kurt Tetzlaff filmed the demolition of three villages south of Leipzig at the end of the 1970s after the East German government decided to change the area into a strip mine for brown coal. The fossil fuel in the region would last for 20 years, and in an era when "acid rain" was still an unfamiliar concept, no one was thinking of the long-term consequences of the sulfuric compounds that would be released from burning this type of coal. The villagers were all prepared for their move, yet nothing could quite make up for the loss of their community traditions, their homes, and the graveyards that were memorials to their ancestors. About five years later, Tetzlaff interviews the same villagers again in their new homes to find out if and how their attitudes and feelings might have changed over time.