Full Metal Village

Asia Pacific Premiere

Wacken, a sleepy German farm town, wakes up once a year to a rowdy heavy metal music festival. Wacken’s population is aging as the younger residents migrate to the cities leaving the older generation to struggle against the competition from factory farms.

Set against this backdrop, Korean born director Cho Sung-hyung, deftly focuses on the town’s inhabitants as they deal with the annual pilgrimage by 40,000 headbangers to the town in this clash of age and culture. Filmed in the tradition of a German "heimat" or "homeland" film, Heavy Metal Village highlights the manner in which the tolerant citizens of Wacken have actually come to embrace the brief, surging cash flow brought by the rebellious music fans that put this quaint, north German town on the map despite the annual havoc it wrecks on their tranquil routine. The film chooses to focus on the vanishing way of rural life rather than the festival in this funny and revealing documentary.