Life under Palm Trees

Format: PAL, Stereo
Duration: 60 Minuten
Bonus material: interviews and other original material
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Language: German with English or Spanish subtitles
Production: Michael Würfel
Year of production: 2001
written, directed, shot and edited by: Michael Würfel

Additional Camera: Volker Schellbach
Mixing: Johannes Scherzer, Tonus Arcus
Editing Consultor: Andreas Preisner
EditBox: Marlies Roth
German Narrator: René Schwittay
Photos: Wolfgang Blöchl
Pilot: Thomas Bielefeld
Music (Credits) played by Len Hanak-Hammerl

© 2001 Michael Würfel MiTV

The ecovillage Sieben Linden (meaning "seven linden trees") is a community of about 40 adults plus children (at the time of shooting) who plan to build a new village in a rural, conservative part of Germany with high unemployment and little cultural infrastructure. Some 300 people are supposed to live an ecologically and socially oriented life there one day.

Michael Wuerfel lived and filmed in the community for four months in the summer of 2001 to report about the project and to give an insight into the remarkable aspects of life there life there: the division in smaller groups within the big community, the ecological challenge of building a house solely with regional materials and without machines, the relations to the people that live in the nearby villages. "Life under Palm Trees was published in 2002 and has become a classic in ecovillage history.

The DVD Editon 2009 features a 15 minute supplemental film from 2009 that presents the most important developments since 2001. It includes English and Spanish subtitles for both the feature and the supplemental film "Seven Years Later", with special subtitle versions for the hearing impaired.

The Film was shown on the following Filmfestivals:

Ökomedia Freiburg 2002
Prix Leonardo, Parma, Italien 2003
FIFE Kairouan, Tunesien 2004
and moreons to the people that life in the nearby villages.