It took almost three years to make this lavish, high-budget film. It tells us about the industrial production and processing of vegetable and animal food that most of us know nothing about. In the rhythm of conveyer belts and big, mighty machines, in a radical way and without usual narrators, the camera leads us to various places in Europe where the food is produced: monumental plants, surrealistic nature, and bizarre sounds of a cold, industrial atmosphere. The lack of narrative, as well as evasion of the scenes of slaughter and maiming additionally contribute to the perception and reflection on the acceptability of modern farming methods and the their consequences for people, fauna, and environment.
Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Nikolaus Geyrhalter is director, producer, writer and cinematographer, born in Vienna, Austria in 1972. Geyrhalter’s static-camera, well-paced observational films tackle their subjects head-on, whether it’s exploring the terrain in Chernobyl, Ukraine (Pripyat), tracing the route of the Dakar Rally (7915 Km), or investigating the production of processed foods (Our Daily Bread).At the age of 22, Geyrhalter started his own production company, Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion (NGF). He made his first film, Eisenerz, in 1992. Two years later, Geyrhalter shot his first documentary, Washed Ashore (Angeschwemmt). Audiences, jurors, and critics took notice of Geyrhalter with Pripyat (1999), which won the SCAM Award at the Cinéma du Réel Festival and the Grand Prize at Diagonale Graz. He followed Pripyat with the epic four-hour globe-hopping documentary, Elsewhere (2001). The film screened at Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Jihlava Film Festival, and won a Special Jury Award at the IDFA. His next feature, Our Daily Bread (2005), won a Special Jury Award at IDFA as well. In the following decade, Geyrhalter examined night labor in Europe with Abendland (2011) and landscapes of urban decay across the world in Homo Sapiens (2016). The latter film played at the Berlinale Forum, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Cinéma du Réel Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and the Viennale. In 2015, Berlin’s Arsenal Cinema programmed a retrospective dedicated to his work. The 38th Cinéma du Réel Festival programmed a sidebar on his documentaries. ZagrebDox is following Geyrhalter’s work by screening almost all of his films he made in the last decade, e.g. Our Daily Bread, Allentsteig, Danube Hospital and Abendland, as well as screening a special retrospective program in 2017.
General sponsor
Unser täglich brot
Austria
2005, 90', color, 35 mm
Directed by:
Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Screenplay by:
Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Wolfgang Widerhofer
Cinematography:
Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Edited by:
Wolfgang Widerhofer
Producers:
Michael Kitzberger, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Markus Glaser, Wolfgang Widerhofer
Produced by:
Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion GmbH
