Over a period of several years, photographer Thomas Heller travelled through Transylvania. His aim was to take a photographic inventory of the last Saxons who were born here and who, for various reasons, resisted the lure of the wave of emigration in the early 1990s.

Only a few thousand of them, with an average age of over 60 years, still live in today's Romania. The Transylvanian Saxons are the oldest surviving German settler group in Eastern Europe. Community life can only be found in a few towns in Transylvania. Apart from a few exceptions, only a few, mostly older Saxons still live in the villages. The images document how a culture that has been preserved for 850 years is coming to an end in fast motion and will cease to exist in a few years' time.

 Film screening "Gherdeal"

23 February 2024 at 7 pm

 In the heart of Romania, at the end of a cul-de-sac, lies the small village of Gherdeal.Using the example of the last German family, the film shows the unstoppable social decay and decline of the Transylvanian community.

 A documentary film by Martin Nudow and Thomas Beckmann