LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
German film crew features Kutztown Folk Fest in documentary
A German film crew filmed Pennsylvania Dutch culture during the 2017 Kutztown Folk Festival for its documentary “Palatine German Dialect in the USA.”
Christian Schega, a film producer from Germany, originally comes from a town called Landau in the South Palatinate, Germany. The dialect spoken in that area is called Pfälzisch. Together with her colleague, Benjamin Wagener, they discovered that there are many people in the U.S. who also speak more or less the same dialect. Here it is called Pennsylvania Dutch.
“About 300 years ago many people from the Palatinate immigrated to the USA and settled in the area of today’s Pennsylvania. This fact is very unknown for people from the Palatinate,” said Schega. “As we found out here, many people do not know that we can actually understand the Pennsylvania Dutch language.”
They conducted some research and met Douglas Madenford, a teacher of German from Kutztown who grew up learning two languages, English and Pennsylvania Dutch. In his spare time he creates YouTube courses and videos about Pennsylvania Dutch.
In their documentary “Palatine German Dialect in the USA,” the film crew accompanies Madenford on a search for the roots of his language and culture.
A documentary about the Palatine culture and language in the Palatinate and in the USA, Schega said, “In the film we want to show both worlds, their commonalities and their differences. We are sure, that this documentary can be interesting in the USA and in Germany.”
When they started the project, they met Michael Werner, a well known expert in Pennsylvania Dutch who founded the blog/ magazine Hiwwe wie driwwe (https://hiwwewiedriwwe.wordpress.com/) which is being published in Kutztown twice a year with a circulation of 2,500 copies, as well as in an online blog.
Werner told them about the Kutztown Folk Festival.
“After a little research it was clear that we have to film there. Nowhere else can you find so much of the PA Dutch culture in one place. In fact, our film will start with the Festival before we
go to more places in Pennsylvania.”
The Kutztown Folk Festival showed them that the Palatine culture is still alive even after about 300 years.
“Some of the traditions survived here, when in the “alde Land” (old Country, Germany) the traditions died out, just like the groundhog day,” said Schega.
During filming at the Kutztown Folk Festival, the film crew conducted many interviews with people who still speak Pennsylvania Dutch.
“But we also showed a lot of the cultural things that are typical PA Dutch, like the Hex signs, Redware, Hoedown Dance and, of course, the food,” said Schega. “By filming the culture at the festival we can show the variety of the culture.”
What did they learn at the festival?
“Kannst Du Micke fange?” — “Ja, wann se hucke bliebe,” said Schega.
“Unfortunately we also had to learn, that the language is slowly dying, because only few people, most of the time older people, speak it. Hopefully there is a way that the language can still be kept alive, also outside of Amish and Mennonite societies,” said Schega.
Kutztown Folk Festival director Steve Sharadin was happy to welcome the German film crew to the festival.
“It’s great that international visitors find the festival not just unique, but culturally important. I think it confirms that the festival continues to be after 68 years a celebration of the Pennsylvania Dutch culture,” Sharadin said. “The film crew was very impressed with how closely the PA Dutch dialect matched their German dialect and how similarly the geography was to theirs. They felt very much at home.”
In addition to filming at the Kutztown Folk Festival, the German film crew filmed in several other places in Pennsylvania and in Virginia.
“We also filmed at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia, where we could show the first steps of the settlers here in the USA. That way we also can show a little bit of the history how it came, that there is culture and language that originally comes from the Palatinate is alive here a few thousand miles away in the USA,” said Schega. “In the beginning of August we also film in Germany where we want to show the roots of the culture there and how it looks today.”
The film is anticipated to be completed the beginning of next year. They hope to have a film premiere in Kutztown.
“The people here were so nice and we had really great support from them and also the interview partners. There is obviously a big interest in this topic. We are also really very grateful for the people from the festival who supported us in a way that we didn’t expect,” said Schega.