Gspell 111 : Bergbauern in den Alpen - Die letzten ihrer Art

Over the course of many years, the South Tyrolean photographer Roland Reinstadler accompanied the life of a mountain farming family in the Passeier Valley, which is determined by weather and the rhythm of the seasons. With impressive images, Gspell 111 tells the story of a family that still lives completely in a very traditional way in the mountains of South Tyrol. While the elderly farmer Siegfried and his son Florian live the whole year on the farm, which is partly cut off from the outside world during the winter months, Katharina, the wife and mother, spends only the summer on the centuries-old farm. The first documentary mention of the farm dates back to 1629. According to Tyrolean historian Josef Tarnaller (1844-1924), Gspell is part of the Erlhof, a farm that was buried in the great landslide of 1401, the devastating landslide that gave rise to Kummersee Lake. The name Gspell, Tarneller explains, comes from the word ''spellen'', meaning ''to split''. Today, 8 cows, 15 sheep and 15 hens are kept on the farm. The milk is used for home consumption and for rearing the calves, the family lives mainly from the sale of young animals and the farm subsidies. The book provides insight into the once meager and very deprived life in the mountains, a life that exists in this form only very rarely - ''the last of their kind,'' so to speak.