After the catastrophe in 1986, a 30-km restricted 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. What is life like for these people, a life with the invisible and incomprehensible danger of radioactivity? How do they deal with the aftereffects of an accident which is claimed to be statistically improbable? Four protagonists tell their stories and provide a look at everyday life in “their“ zone.
Pripyat
Pripyat
Screening Schedule
No physical screenings scheduled. |
- Direction: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
- Script: Wolfgang Widerhofer, Nikolaus Geyrhalter
- Cinematography: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
- Editing: Wolfgang Widerhofer
- Sound: Alexej Salow
- Production: NGF – Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion
- Producers: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
- Format: DCP
- Color: B/W
- Production Country: Austria
- Production Year: 1999
- Duration: 100'
- Contact: NGF – Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion
- Awards/Distinctions: Grand Prix – Festival of Austrian Film 1999, Grand Prix – Munich IFF 1999, Grand Prix – Odivelas FF 1999, Jury Prize, Audience Prize – Visions du Réel 1999, SCAM International Award – Cinéma du Réel 1999, International Documentary Award – Istanbul IFF 1999
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
