Waste on the shores, waste on the mountains. On ocean floors and deep down in the earth. The term “matter out of place” refers to objects in a place they originally do not belong to. And there are many such objects in the places Nikolaus Geyrhalter visits for this film. In his unique imagery consisting of minutely composed pictures, the director traces immense amounts of waste across our planet. From the mountain tops of Switzerland to the coasts of Greece and Albania, into an Austrian refuse incinerator and then to Nepal and the Maldives, and finally to the deserts of Nevada. Matter Out Of Place is about human-made refuse, which is surrounding us all the time everywhere. On his journey, Geyrhalter illustrates the sheer endless struggle of people to gain control over the vast amounts of waste that we produce every single day. Collecting, shredding, burning, burying – a Sisyphean task, which ostensibly solves the global problem of rubbish that is stealthily growing.
Matter Out of Place
Matter Out of Place
No physical screenings scheduled. |
- Direction: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
- Cinematography: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
- Editing: Samira Ghahremani, Michael Palm
- Sound: Sergey Martynyuk, Nora Czamler
- Production: NGF – Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion
- Producers: Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Michael Kitzberger, Wolfgang Widerhofer, Markus Glaser
- Executive producer: Michael Kitzberger
- Format: DCP
- Color: Color
- Production Country: Austria
- Production Year: 2022
- Duration: 107'
- Contact: Austrian Films
- Awards/Distinctions: Best Feature Length Documentary – Festival dei Popoli 2022, Best Director – Black Canvas Contemporary FF 2022, Pardo Verde WWF Award – Locarno FF 2022
Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Nikolaus Geyrhalter is a director, producer, and cameraman, born in Vienna in 1972. In 1994, when he was 22 years old, he founded his own production company Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion which focuses on documentaries and amateur fiction. He made his first film, Eisenerz, in 1992. Two years later, he shot his first documentary, Washed Ashore (1994) narrating a story about the river Danube and often strange idiosyncrasies of the people who live along its banks. Geyrhalter’s static-camera, well-paced observational films tackle their subjects head-on, whether it’s exploring the terrain in Chernobyl, Ukraine (Pripyat, 1999), tracing the route of the Dakar Rally (7915 KM, 2008), or investigating the production of processed foods (Our Daily Bread, 2005). In 2003, he received the Austrian State Award for Film Art and in 2008 his film Our Daily Bread won the Grimme Prize. Throughout the years, his films were nominated for and won numerous other awards in the world’s most renowned festivals, including (among others) IDFA, the Berlinale, Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, IndieLisboa, DocSheffield, Cinéma du Réel, Diagonale, and, most recently, Locarno.
Filmography
1994 Washed Ashore
1997 The Year After Dayton
1999 Pripyat
2001 Elsewhere
2005 Our Daily Bread
2008 7915 KM
2010 Allentsteig (TV)
2011 Abendland
2012 Danube Hospital (TV)
2013 Cern (TV)
2015 Over the Years
2016 Homo Sapiens
2018 The Border Fence
2019 Earth
2022 Matter Out of Place
