ELSEWHERE
Original language title: [same]

Country of production: Austria
Year: 2001
Language: Many languages
240 mins.

Austrian filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter and his crew traveled to a different remote corner of the globe each month during the year 2000, creating the twelve 20-minute episodes that make up this homage to humanity at the beginning of the 21st century. In the deserts of Niger, young women coax a donkey to pull a bucket of water from a well. In the vast, wintery Finnish tundra, a man finds a headless reindeer - his livelihood - devoured by wolverines. A huge sago palm crashes down in an Indonesian jungle, felled by a family working with stone axes. In Sardinia, Italy, one of the last remaining traditional fishermen takes his boat out to sea. This around-the-world film travels through places, languages and moments of cultural transition, not only to show us what life is like "elsewhere" but also to gives us a sense of what unites us all, what divides us and what reactions our actions bring. "That's the world," says Tuareg Mohamed Bada. "It constantly changes direction."

Contrary to typical documentaries of Western exploration, locales in Europe and North America are considered "elsewhere" as much as those in Africa, Asia and Australia. Geyrhalter's virtual absence from the frame provides us with both a dispassionate look into the everyday lives of these people and the feeling of the film's subjects looking back at us. ELSEWHERE is an astoundingly unique, landmark film, and a not-to-be missed opportunity to see places few of us will ever visit ourselves.

Director: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Script: Silvia Bruner, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Michael Kitzberger
Cinematography: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Producer: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Production Company: Geyrhalter Filmproduktion
Source:
Austrian Film Commision
Stiftgasse 6
A-1070 Vienna, Austria
festivals@afc.at

Nikolaus Geyrhalter was born in Vienna in 1972. In 1994 he founded Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion. Films he has made as producer, director, and cameraman include: WASHED ASHORE (1994), THE YEAR AFTER DAYTON (1997), PRIPYAT (1999), and now ELSEWHERE (240 mins).

Saturday, March 22
5pm
Doc Films