Resin

Luserna, Trentino/Alto Adige, Northern Italy. A small South Tyrolian mountain village with barely 300 inhabitants. Cellist Maria has returned to this isolated hamlet in which she was born, disenchanted with the competitive urban music industry. Her family consists of her ailing mother and a grieving sister in law, Maria’s brother having died in a fatal tractor accident. He had wanted to create a vineyard in the steep hills, as the region’s average temperature had increased due to climate change. The farm is debt-ridden. It is summer and the chair lifts and T-bars on the slopes are idle. You cannot help wondering whether winters here still produce enough snow for their use. Maria’s grandfather once lead Luserna’s male choir. The peculiarity of the polyphone choir is that it sings in Zimbrian, a language that is still spoken in Luserna today. It is a mixture of old Bavarian and Italian, surviving only in remote mountain villages in the Alps of the Trentino region. The choir, Maria detects, still exists. But, its current members are all drunkards and even the choirmaster, Quirino, is never without his bottle of local spirits. He is nonetheless determined to take his choir to an international singing competition, and asks Maria for her help. Will their joint efforts lead to success? (Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg)