Overview

The last school has closed, every second house is empty, far and wide only rapeseed fields. And at some point, people are faced with the decision - stay or go? "Landretter" traces different social phenomena brought about by structural change in the countryside and, over the course of several years, follows four people who give rural life an unusual impetus: the mayoress in Seifhennersdorf, Saxony, gets caught between the fronts when parents try to prevent the closure of the local secondary school through illegal protest teaching. A farmer from the Allgäu region enters politics and tries to exert pressure in the European Parliament against land concentration in Europe. And an astronomer from Austria is fighting to protect the natural sky by joining forces with an innkeeper to have a small, unknown village declared a World Heritage Site. All four have completely different backgrounds, but they are united by a firm belief in the power of the individual and the courage to break new ground with their actions. The film delves into their personal microcosm and shows what can be done to counteract the decline in the countryside. In doing so, it tells a profoundly European story - because throughout Europe, rural people face comparable challenges.