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    Full Metal Village – Heavy Metal Festival in Wacken

    By Ron Holloway | August 26, 2008

    Before South Korean-born, Germany-based documentary filmmaker Sung-Hyung Cho visited the famous three-day Heavy Metal Festival in the Schleswig-Holstein village of Wacken to shoot Full Metal Village (Germany, 2006), she admitted to knowing little about rural life in northern Germany. But when villagers opened their hearts to Cho to tell some fascinating stories about their past and present, that’s when the film springs to life.

    Long before the blowout festival actually takes place, we see a peaceful landscape and follow villagers during their daily routines at home, in the local inn, in workshops, on the fields. The kick comes when 40,000 heavy metal fans swamp Wacken by their very presence. What’s more, they are welcomed by the friendly community of 2,000 with blasts from their own brass band! After that comes the expected: noise to break the ear-drums, mud-fights to let off steam, a competition between the heavy metal bands.

    This fun documentary, previously awarded the Max Ophüls Prize at Saarbrücken and then programmed in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino program at last year’s Berlinale, went on from there to win the New Berlin Film Award for Best Cinematography (Markus Winterbauer, Börres Weiffenbach) at the Achtung Berlin festival. Not to be overlooked, too, is the musical score by Iranian composer Peyman Yazdanian, who scored films for Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami (The Wind Will Carry Us) and Jafar Panahi (Crimsom Gold), China’s Yu Lee (Summer Palace) and Germany’s Nora Hoppe (La Fine del Mare).

    – Ron Holloway

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