From the acclaimed director of Pripyat, Elsewhere and Our Daily Bread, Abendland (in English, The West) is a brilliantly evocative film essay about the Western world, specifically its affluence and exclusiveness. Director Geyrhalter explores this theme with striking images, all filmed at night, that are typical of a modern, industrialized, wealthy civilization: a streamlined crematorium, a complicated security surveillance room, a cold and eerily quiet television news studio. Mass mechanization is a common thread throughout, turning what should be intimate exchanges between people into depersonalized mechanical operations. The director states that he wanted to “capture Europe in a film.” And it is captured, with a wealth of details that makes us look at Europe and ourselves in a new way. —Hot Docs
Producer, director and cameraman Nikolaus Geyrhalter was born in Vienna in 1972. At the age of twenty-two he founded his own production company (Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion). Among his films are the award-winning Pripyat, Our Daily Bread and Elsewhere and his latest film is 7915 KM. In 2003 Nikolaus Geyrhalter received the Austrian State Award for Film Art. —doxafestival.ca
This is a kindred spirit of Chantal Akerman's D'Est, a masterful odyssey through Europe by night in the 21st century, with the seamless documentary juxtaposition that was pioneered by Chris Marker and Patricio Guzman, now perpetuated by Geyrhalter and Huang Weikei.
True Art. im a big Fan from Geyrhalter after i saw Unser Täglich Brot. Very happy that he made a second movie in this Style.
Discussion with director Niki Geyrhalter and cutter Wolfgang Widerhofer (in German): http://www.diagonale.at/static/lets_talk_about_scripts.mp3