Matter Out of Place

Nikolaus Geyrhalter / Austria / 2022 / Czech Premiere / 105 min.

synopsis

At first glance, from afar and from a distance, we see a charming view of the sea bay, — only in close-ups do we see that the coastline is covered in washed-up plastic bottles. In slow, contrasting still images, the conceptual documentary traces the Sisyphean effort to get waste to its designated place. The inadequacy inherent in the film's title is most evident in the giant Asian garbage dump, a seemingly bottomless pit designed to bury whatever people have left behind. We create waste even in the most unlikely places, like mountain peaks or the surface of the sea, and our efforts to bury it somewhere, to hide it, to make it invisible, seem absurd.

“The places we see are fascinating. But we can't stop to look at just the surface. We have to go further. Everything we produce or use ends up to be trash at some point. Once we throw it away, it's not gone. The process starts just then.”

---
Source: https://www.cineuropa.org/en/interview/428745/

biography

Nikolaus Geyrhalter (b. 1972) is an Austrian documentary film director and producer. He is the founder of Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion and focuses on environmental and global issues. The Jihlava festival has already screened his “study of the Anthropocene” called Earth (2019).

more about film

director:	Nikolaus Geyrhalter
producer:	Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Michael Kitzberger, Wolfgang Widerhofer, Markus Glaser
script:	Nikolaus Geyrhalter
photography:	Nikolaus Geyrhalter
editing:	Samira Ghahremani, Michael Palm
sound:	Sergey Martynyuk, Nora Czamler
sound design:	Florian Kindlinger, Flora Rajakowitsch