Truckstop Geiselwind
Days And Nights At Europe‘s Biggest Truck Stop Haven
For truck pilots, the main targets of their thinking aren’t Barcelona, Paris, or Berlin. Their coordinate system swings around places like Ellwangen, Sittensen, or Geiselwind. Thousands of trucks and their drivers are constantly on the hunt for overnight parking and safe sleeping places — and, if they’re lucky, for hot showers and a meal. Truck drivers are the modern nomads of the just-in-time era. Truck stops are the harbours of modern times.
We get to know a few of these characters in permanent transit — from Türkiye to the United Kingdom, from Siberia to the south of Spain. It’s a lonely, exhausting lifestyle, with merciless bureaucrats and ruthless shipping companies constantly on their backs — but most drivers wouldn’t want to do anything else for a living. There’s an air of freedom in driving long distance on your own, with 30 tons of freight behind you. A film between melancholy and horsepower, romantic lonesome riding, police checks, amphetamines, and the threat of an accident around the next corner.
Geiselwind is a village of 800 souls, located on the A3 Autobahn, halfway between Nuremberg and Würzburg in northern Bavaria. At night, more than 3,000 drivers park here, where the smell of diesel and tyre rubber is all around, and the coziest place is a driver’s cab, where you go to sleep and think of the people you miss.
We get to know a few of these characters in permanent transit — from Türkiye to the United Kingdom, from Siberia to the south of Spain. It’s a lonely, exhausting lifestyle, with merciless bureaucrats and ruthless shipping companies constantly on their backs — but most drivers wouldn’t want to do anything else for a living. There’s an air of freedom in driving long distance on your own, with 30 tons of freight behind you. A film between melancholy and horsepower, romantic lonesome riding, police checks, amphetamines, and the threat of an accident around the next corner.
Geiselwind is a village of 800 souls, located on the A3 Autobahn, halfway between Nuremberg and Würzburg in northern Bavaria. At night, more than 3,000 drivers park here, where the smell of diesel and tyre rubber is all around, and the coziest place is a driver’s cab, where you go to sleep and think of the people you miss.
Credits
Written and directed by
Petra Höfer
Freddie Röckenhaus
Producers:
Carola Sayer
Francesca D‘Amicis
DOP:
Thomas Schäfer
Editing:
Jörg Wegner
Editor at Radio Bremen Television:
Michael Geyer
A colourFIELD production, commissioned by Radio Bremen
