- Occupation
Producer, Director - Country
Austria
Geyrhalter Nikolaus
Across the Border
Five directors from Central Europe contribute to making an international film reflecting a unique moment of forming of a new European community.
Goisern Goes East
Enjoy a concert tour by ship. The Austrian musician Hubert von Goisern is crossing the East of Europe on the Danube from Austria to the Black Sea. He invites excellent musicians from the local pop and jazz scene. These musical and personal encounters along the shore are reflecting the changing cultures and their powerful expressions.
Our Daily Bread
Welcome to the world of industrial food production and high-tech farming! OUR DAILY BREAD is a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn't always easy to digest - and in which we all take part. A pure, meticulous and high-end film experience that enables the audience to form their own ideas.
Food Design
Take a look at the secret chambers of major food manufacturers - where designers and scientists are defining your favorite mouthful of tomorrow. The TV documentary FOOD DESIGN shows how form, color, smell, consistency, the sounds made during eating, manufacturing technique, history and stories influence food design. Should foodstuffs be considered designer products in the same way as Armani suits, Alessi coffee cups and Ferraris? Of course!
Eisenwurzen - A Mountain Musical
Eisenwurzen is located in a longtime steel-factory region between Lower Austria, Upper Austria and Styria. EISENWURZEN (The Musical) is a 52 minute glance at the myths and toils of this country-like industrial landscape, a sung landscape portrait, unplugged.The heroes and heroines - all musicians - are miners, charcoal burners, mountain farmers, hunters and factory workers. With the strange musicality of their voices they create, within a meteorological as well as social politically rough climate, a spare hymn on an already historical worker's society. One that has portrayed itself with mineral wealth, mountain top, stable work and work ethics. They sing with their songs the Eisenwurzen Blues and, at the same time, it's avantgardistic arrival in contemporary song-culture. A Docu-musical for friends or foes of folk music.
Flyers Over Amazonia
Flying as a dream and a passion, a job and a fate. That's the story of pilots Nilton and Fernando, hoboes of the air. They fly over Amazonia, the largest river region on the planet and its greatest forest, both a miracle of creation and a target of deforestation. Amazonia is portrayed in brilliant bird's-eye-view images, through authentic characters and their stories, actors, the pilots' voices, their thoughts concerning flying, fact and invention.A film that maintains a balance between realism and poetry, everyday life and dreams, combining them to pull the viewer into this world. An invitation to fly along.
7915 KM
A motor-sports spectacle that kicks up plenty of dust. On the trail of the 2007 Dakar Rallye 7915 KM undertakes a search, along the way encountering the variety to be found in Africa's present in Morocco, Sahrawi Republic, Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. 7915 KM demonstrates the extent of this distance, which is the result of political and economic conditions, and also the ideas and prejudices to be found in both Europe and Africa. It also makes the closeness tangible, which becomes clear in the stories of everyday life, work, hopes and worries. Keeping the sobering reality in mind, it creates an homage to humanity and slowness which questions deep-seated perceptions and the role of Europeans in numerous, presumably African, problems.
More than just Words
"More than just Words" - doing something rather than just talking about a problem. In February 1984, 50 Austrians formed the work brigade “February ’34” and set off for Nicaragua. They were moved by their solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution, which ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Somoza clan, only to be threatened by the US policy of invasion. For almost a month, the group worked on a construction of a community center under extremely difficult conditions, at the same time getting acquainted with a country in the middle of a process started by a revolution.
Abendland
Western standard of living, civilization, and the urge to exclude others from it are the core of Geyrhalter's latest cinematic documentary essay. Entirely shot at night, Geyrhalter takes us on a very personal journey through the Western world and the structures that guarantee our "civilized" world. Sometimes darkness can help us to see things more clearly.
Allentsteig
The belief that there are no more white spots on Austria’s map is not quite right: In 1938 the German army established one of Europe’s largest military training grounds in northern Lower Austria. The over 160 square kilometers it covers are still restricted area. Nikolaus Geyrhalter approaches this literally occupied territory from a variety of new directions: the choreography of daily drills, the people who live on the edge of this area, and those who were resettled many years ago. Dozens of plant and animal species now live in this area, apparently without being affected by the activity and noise.
Pripyat
Pripyat is the name of a town that is located five kilometres from the Russian nuclear power station Chernobyl. Until 1986, the year of the catastrophe, it had some 50,000 inhabitants; today it is a deserted and heavily guarded ghost town. The power station itself is partly operational again, but the workers are no longer living within walking distance of the plant. They go to work by bus every day. Around the nuclear station, a safety radius of 30 kilometres may have been created, but nobody knows the exact influence and consequences of the radioactive radiation. Some farmers in the area have stayed, and just keep growing and eating potatoes. An elderly couple got permission to go back. They have now been living safe and sound in the vicinity of the plant for 12 years.Strange as it may be, in this beautifully framed black-and-white film by the Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, the region takes on an almost idyllic aura. Former residents of Pripyat who still work at the power station, think back wistfully about the old days. Too many questions have remained unanswered, while life and nature just seem to go on. Radiation or no radiation.
Danube Hospital
A portrait of one of Europe’s largest hospitals shows the daily routines and work processes at a powerful and highly complex institution. By depicting a modern healthcare facility, Danube Hospital holds a mirror to our society to show how it deals with health and illness, life and death. Nikolaus Geyrhalter observes what goes on in a variety of zones, in conference areas, ORs, patients’ rooms, the disinfection and pathology departments, and the kitchen. As the film visits all these areas, it follows an ingenious principle of a puzzle whose pieces produce an effect only when fully assembled. A portrait of an institution in which the relationships between processes that are invisible to patients and visitors are shown in all their precision.
Five directors from Central Europe contribute to making an international film reflecting a unique moment of forming of a new European community.
Goisern Goes East
Enjoy a concert tour by ship. The Austrian musician Hubert von Goisern is crossing the East of Europe on the Danube from Austria to the Black Sea. He invites excellent musicians from the local pop and jazz scene. These musical and personal encounters along the shore are reflecting the changing cultures and their powerful expressions.
Our Daily Bread
Welcome to the world of industrial food production and high-tech farming! OUR DAILY BREAD is a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn't always easy to digest - and in which we all take part. A pure, meticulous and high-end film experience that enables the audience to form their own ideas.
Food Design
Take a look at the secret chambers of major food manufacturers - where designers and scientists are defining your favorite mouthful of tomorrow. The TV documentary FOOD DESIGN shows how form, color, smell, consistency, the sounds made during eating, manufacturing technique, history and stories influence food design. Should foodstuffs be considered designer products in the same way as Armani suits, Alessi coffee cups and Ferraris? Of course!
Eisenwurzen - A Mountain Musical
Eisenwurzen is located in a longtime steel-factory region between Lower Austria, Upper Austria and Styria. EISENWURZEN (The Musical) is a 52 minute glance at the myths and toils of this country-like industrial landscape, a sung landscape portrait, unplugged.The heroes and heroines - all musicians - are miners, charcoal burners, mountain farmers, hunters and factory workers. With the strange musicality of their voices they create, within a meteorological as well as social politically rough climate, a spare hymn on an already historical worker's society. One that has portrayed itself with mineral wealth, mountain top, stable work and work ethics. They sing with their songs the Eisenwurzen Blues and, at the same time, it's avantgardistic arrival in contemporary song-culture. A Docu-musical for friends or foes of folk music.
Flyers Over Amazonia
Flying as a dream and a passion, a job and a fate. That's the story of pilots Nilton and Fernando, hoboes of the air. They fly over Amazonia, the largest river region on the planet and its greatest forest, both a miracle of creation and a target of deforestation. Amazonia is portrayed in brilliant bird's-eye-view images, through authentic characters and their stories, actors, the pilots' voices, their thoughts concerning flying, fact and invention.A film that maintains a balance between realism and poetry, everyday life and dreams, combining them to pull the viewer into this world. An invitation to fly along.
7915 KM
A motor-sports spectacle that kicks up plenty of dust. On the trail of the 2007 Dakar Rallye 7915 KM undertakes a search, along the way encountering the variety to be found in Africa's present in Morocco, Sahrawi Republic, Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. 7915 KM demonstrates the extent of this distance, which is the result of political and economic conditions, and also the ideas and prejudices to be found in both Europe and Africa. It also makes the closeness tangible, which becomes clear in the stories of everyday life, work, hopes and worries. Keeping the sobering reality in mind, it creates an homage to humanity and slowness which questions deep-seated perceptions and the role of Europeans in numerous, presumably African, problems.
More than just Words
"More than just Words" - doing something rather than just talking about a problem. In February 1984, 50 Austrians formed the work brigade “February ’34” and set off for Nicaragua. They were moved by their solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution, which ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Somoza clan, only to be threatened by the US policy of invasion. For almost a month, the group worked on a construction of a community center under extremely difficult conditions, at the same time getting acquainted with a country in the middle of a process started by a revolution.
Abendland
Western standard of living, civilization, and the urge to exclude others from it are the core of Geyrhalter's latest cinematic documentary essay. Entirely shot at night, Geyrhalter takes us on a very personal journey through the Western world and the structures that guarantee our "civilized" world. Sometimes darkness can help us to see things more clearly.
Allentsteig
The belief that there are no more white spots on Austria’s map is not quite right: In 1938 the German army established one of Europe’s largest military training grounds in northern Lower Austria. The over 160 square kilometers it covers are still restricted area. Nikolaus Geyrhalter approaches this literally occupied territory from a variety of new directions: the choreography of daily drills, the people who live on the edge of this area, and those who were resettled many years ago. Dozens of plant and animal species now live in this area, apparently without being affected by the activity and noise.
Pripyat
Pripyat is the name of a town that is located five kilometres from the Russian nuclear power station Chernobyl. Until 1986, the year of the catastrophe, it had some 50,000 inhabitants; today it is a deserted and heavily guarded ghost town. The power station itself is partly operational again, but the workers are no longer living within walking distance of the plant. They go to work by bus every day. Around the nuclear station, a safety radius of 30 kilometres may have been created, but nobody knows the exact influence and consequences of the radioactive radiation. Some farmers in the area have stayed, and just keep growing and eating potatoes. An elderly couple got permission to go back. They have now been living safe and sound in the vicinity of the plant for 12 years.Strange as it may be, in this beautifully framed black-and-white film by the Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, the region takes on an almost idyllic aura. Former residents of Pripyat who still work at the power station, think back wistfully about the old days. Too many questions have remained unanswered, while life and nature just seem to go on. Radiation or no radiation.
Danube Hospital
A portrait of one of Europe’s largest hospitals shows the daily routines and work processes at a powerful and highly complex institution. By depicting a modern healthcare facility, Danube Hospital holds a mirror to our society to show how it deals with health and illness, life and death. Nikolaus Geyrhalter observes what goes on in a variety of zones, in conference areas, ORs, patients’ rooms, the disinfection and pathology departments, and the kitchen. As the film visits all these areas, it follows an ingenious principle of a puzzle whose pieces produce an effect only when fully assembled. A portrait of an institution in which the relationships between processes that are invisible to patients and visitors are shown in all their precision.
1972 born in Vienna, Austria. In 1994 founded Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion, since 2003 ltd. company. Main projetcts: Washed Ashore (1994), The Year after Dayton (1997), Pripyat (1998), Elsewhere (2001), Our Daily Bread (2005), 7915 km (2008). In 2003 received Austrian State Award for Film Art and in 2008 his film “Our Daily Bread” won the Grimme Prize.
2011 ABENDLAND (A + 88 min. + 35mm (HDCam) + Documentary) Some things can be seen more clearly at night: ABENDLAND undertakes a long, associative journey, surveying Europe by night in terms of its many different facets. Night work, oblivious- ness to the surrounding world, noise and silence, a Babel of languages and translation problems, one’s first steps in life, disease, death and desperate attempts to cross borders: An essay film about the principle of the Western world. 2010 ALLENTSTEIG (A + 79 min. + HDCam + TV-Documentary) One of Europe’s largest military training grounds in northern Lower Austria is a restricted area, a white spot on the map. ALLENTSTEIG approach- es this literally occupied territory from a variety of new directions: the choreography of daily drills, the people who live on the edge of this area, and those who were resettled many years ago. Dozens of plant and animal species now live in this area, apparently without being affected by the activity and noise.2008 7915 KM (A + 106 min. + 35mm (HDCam) + Cinemascope + Feature Documentary) On the trail of the 2007 Dakar Rally 7915 KM undertakes a search, along the way encountering the variety to be found in Africa’s present in Morocco, Sahrawi Republic, Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. Keeping the sobering reality in mind, it creates an homage to humanity and slowness which questions deep-seated percep- tions and the role of Europeans in numerous, presumably African, problems. 2005 OUR DAILY BREAD (UNSER TÄGLICH BROT) (A + 90 min. + 35mm (HDCam) + Feature Documentary) To the rhythm of conveyor belts and immense machines, OUR DAILY BREAD looks without commenting into the world of industrial food production and high-tech farming in Europe: an industrial environment which leaves little space for individualism. People, animals, crops and machines play a supporting role in the logistics of this system which provides our society’s standard of living. 2001 ELSEWHERE (A + 240 min. + 35mm (HDCam) + Feature Documentary) The year 2000, elsewhere. 12 months. 12 episodes. Weeks, days, single moments of different ways of life. Tradition and change. People of different cultural and geographical background. A film about their life. Landscapes, outlooks on the world, outlooks on life: Desert, snow, valley, jungle, ice, rainforest, stones, swamps, mountains, the sea, forests, a South- Sea atoll. At the beginning of the 21st century.1999 PRIPYAT (A + 100 min. + 35 mm (S16mm) + b/w + Feature Documentary) After the catastrophe in 1986, a 30-km restrict- ed zone was erected around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and 116,000 persons were evacuated from this area. PRIPYAT is a portrait of the people who still live and work there, and of those who have moved back, in ‘their’ zone. What is everyday life like for these people, a life with the invisible and incomprehensible danger of radioactivity? 1997 THE YEAR AFTER DAYTON (DAS JAHR NACH DAYTON ) (A + 204 min. + 35mm (HDCam) + Feature Documentary) A portrait of the first year of peace in Bosnia. this is a human story played out before a background of a war which still makes itself felt. Rajko, the mechanic and his family still not back home; Nermin, the actor, who lost both legs in the war; Halid, a shepherd, risking his life to visit friends: A story of a possible life together, which has on the other hand become impossible in many cases. 1994 WASHED ASHORE (ANGESCHWEMMT) (A + 86 min. + 35mm (S16mm) + b/w + Feature Documentary) Life on the Danube is essentially determined by two factors: the river itself and the often strange idiosyncrasies of the people who live along its banks. And they are multifarious: fishermen and graveyard wardens, Buddhist monks, allotment holders on Danube Island, stranded shippers, tramps and soldiers. All linked by the great current against which they swim. Told in tranquil images by an unobtrusive camera.
Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion GmbH
Hildebrandgasse 26
A-1180 Vienna
Hildebrandgasse 26
A-1180 Vienna
East Silver Caravan - 2008