SCHAFSKÄLTE

A red balloon gets caught in the branches of a tree in the Austrian Alps. Attached to it is a card offering good fortune to the person who finds it. Funnily enough the inhabitants of a small mountain farm in the area could do with a stroke of luck, especially Ferdinand, who is on the look out for a wife. He is 24 years old and when he is not working as a mechanic he is looking after his herd of sheep. But Ferdl is no hillbilly - instead of knitted sweaters he wears Metallica T-shirts. The only problem is that he just doesn't really have much to say to women: "If I told them what I did up here, they'd just laugh at me." Ferdinand grew up on the farm with his sister, Renate, and brother, Peter. Renate still lives there too and is also single. Peter, the intended heir to the farm, has turned his back on its traditional and arduous lifestyle and now lives in a village, with his beloved wife, child and car. Summer frost: the time of year when the sheep have been shorn and yet there is still snow in the valleys – a perfect metaphor for the tough but beautiful life of mountain-dwellers.