Nikolaus Geyrhalter is one of the most recognisable contemporary documentary filmmakers. His films are characterised by extraordinary formal sensitivity. With unparalleled care, the Austrian master composes images whose hallmarks are perfectly chosen frames and long, hypnotic takes. These films must be seen on the big screen. But contrary to appearances, Geyrhalter does not escape reality in them. This year's winner of the Marek Nowicki Award for special achievements in portraying human rights in film has always been interested in topics that cannot be considered secondary. And he has consistently tried to show them from a non-obvious side. The retrospective of his work, which will be presented during the upcoming edition of WATCH DOCS, will consist of four titles selected from the filmmaker's extensive oeuvre. The oldest of them is Pripyat: made 10 years after the Chernobyl disaster, a collective portrait of a community of voluntary exiles who decided to stay in the post-apocalyptic zone around the destroyed power plant.

Our Daily Bread, on the other hand, is a large-scale analysis of industrial methods of food production - a film that has sparked great debate about the ethical and health consequences of large-scale agricultural production. In Matter Out of Place, Geyrhalter tackles our... rubbish in his spectacular style, revealing unorthodox methods of transport and storage.

We will have the pleasure of being the first in Poland to present his latest film The Standstill - a complex portrait of a world brought to a standstill by a pandemic, it is, as usual, captivating in form - and raises a lot of unobvious questions.    

The retrospective of Nikolaus Geyrhalter's work is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw.