A new documentary making its way across the U.S. – “Hiwee wie Driwwe – The Roots of PA Dutch” – was shown to a sold-out audience at the 2019 Kutztown Folk Festival.
“We’re really happy to show the film at the festival. Two years ago when they were here, a lot of the footage that they got for the overall documentary was shot right here at the festival,” said Kutztown Folk Festival director Steve Sharadin. “I think it is a tribute to the fact that Kutztown is still the epicenter so to speak of the PA Dutch culture.”
Filmmakers Benjamin Wagener and Christian Schega took the film on a U.S. tour this summer.
“It’s great coming back to the festival and meeting all of the people again,” said Schega. “Someone told me it’s like a family here at the festival. Somehow it’s also for us like coming back to family.”
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“It’s great being here for us,” said Wagener. “We have the opportunity to show it here to see how the people react and see what they think of the movie. The German reaction was great. They loved the movie. They laughed a lot. Of course, a lot of the things that work in Germany won’t work here and otherwise, so it’s interesting to see.”
About 90 minutes long, the documentary is about the PA Dutch culture and language, its history and the Palatinate region in Germany, where much of the film was shot.
About 50 percent was filmed in Germany, and the other half filmed in Pennsylvania. Large parts were filmed at the Kutztown Folk Festival two years ago.
“During the film shooting in the USA in 2017, we realized that the interest in the topic of the film and also the film itself is very high. That is why we decided that we have to show the film about PA Dutch culture and language in America and Germany,” said Schega.
“What is great is people will see the similarities of the people in Germany and the people here because there are so many things that are the same that it is great to see. I hope they enjoy it and they realize that all of the people are the same in some kind of way,” said Wagener.
Schega and Wagener began working on the film in 2015.
Schega originally comes from a town called Landau in the South Palatinate, Germany. The dialect spoken in that area is called Pfalzisch. Schega and Wagener discovered that many people in the U.S. also speak more or less the same dialect, 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 PA Dutch language.”
They conducted some research and met Douglas Madenford, who teaches German in the Kutztown area and is a PA Dutch YouTuber.
Madenford grew up in Centerport, Berks County, learning two languages, English and PA Dutch. He is the film’s main protagonist.
In the documentary, the film crew accompanies Madenford on a search for the roots of his language and culture.
“I’m the main character. I take the audience on the trip along with us throughout the film,” said Madenford, who was also at the festival performing PA Dutch music and humor with Chris LaRose.
Madenford joined the film makers on the tour in Pennsylvania, including the film showing at the Kutztown Folk Festival.
“I hope mostly that people, the PA Dutch people, are going to learn that there’s a whole group of people across the ocean where we originally came from that are so far apart yet so similar,” said Madenford. “We share so many commonalities. I hope it does the same thing for Germans who come to Pennsylvania to visit. Find out there is not these huge differences between our two peoples.”
The significance of filming the documentary at the festival is that “it’s the best that we have to preserve and show our culture to the people that are not PA Dutch but also remind PA Dutch that all of these things that are part of us – our food ways, our culture, our history, our language – nothing does it better than the Kutztown Folk Festival,” said Madenford.
In April the film celebrated its German premiere.
“People here loved the film so much that cinemas all over the Palatinate region in Germany showed the film in their regular program, right next to films like Dumbo or Avengers. In the first week, the film even entered the German movie charts in 37th place,” said Schega.
The U.S. film tour this summer included a stop at the German Consulate in New York City, the German Club Clark in New Jersey, the German Heritage Museum in Washington, the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Va., and the German Society in Philadelphia.
The tour in Berks County included showings at the Berks History Center in Reading, the Hamburg Strand Theater and the Kutztown Folk Festival, as well as the Zeotropolis Cinema in Lancaster.
