- Occupation
Director - Country
Germany
Pfeifer Claudio
Transylvanian Timber
The only way to reach the Water Valley stretching along the border with Ukraine in northern Romania is via a narrow-gauge railway. The line is operated by a wood processing company which uses it to transport workers and tree trunks through the hilly forests. Romanian border officials now also use the old railway line to patrol the border of the European Union. TRANSYLVANIAN TIMBER provides this information in an on-screen text at the beginning of the film. It then shows scenes shot around the railway, there is no dialogue. A mountain stream rushes through the forest, men fish by the river, a shepherd tends his flock, a car drives along a deserted country road, and again and again viewers look into the faces of men on the train. These impressions from a region on the fringes of Europe are interrupted halfway through the film: a ship crosses the screen, and a disembodied voice retells a dream...
The only way to reach the Water Valley stretching along the border with Ukraine in northern Romania is via a narrow-gauge railway. The line is operated by a wood processing company which uses it to transport workers and tree trunks through the hilly forests. Romanian border officials now also use the old railway line to patrol the border of the European Union. TRANSYLVANIAN TIMBER provides this information in an on-screen text at the beginning of the film. It then shows scenes shot around the railway, there is no dialogue. A mountain stream rushes through the forest, men fish by the river, a shepherd tends his flock, a car drives along a deserted country road, and again and again viewers look into the faces of men on the train. These impressions from a region on the fringes of Europe are interrupted halfway through the film: a ship crosses the screen, and a disembodied voice retells a dream...
Born in 1978 in Freiburg, Germany. Claudio Pfeifer studied film, video and photography at the University of the Arts Bremen from 2002-2006. Since 2006, he has been studying camera and film at the German Film and Television Academy DFFB in Berlin. He shoots music videos and has completed numerous experimental films and animations. Claudio Pfeifer won the Bremer Dokumentarfilm Förderpreis in 2004.