Abendland

As the True/False film Abendland’s tagline says, "Some things can be seen more clearly at night". Abendland has two meanings, "the West" and "evening land" which makes it the perfect title for this film about Europe’s true identity at night. This is a film poem about a continent at night, a culture on which the sun’s going down, though it’s hyper alert at the same time, an "Abendland" that, often somewhat self-obsessively, sees itself as the crown of human civilization, while its service economy is undergoing rapid growth in a thoroughly pragmatic way. Nikolaus Geyrhalter takes a look at a paradise with a quite diverse understanding of protection. Night work juxtaposed with oblivious evening digression, birth and death, questions that await answers in the semi-darkness, a Babel of languages, the routine of the daily news, and political negotiation: All this has been captured in images with a wealth of details that make us look at things in a new way.

Director: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Writer: Wolfgang Widerhofer, Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Runtime: 90 min
Genre: Documentary
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Production Year: 2011

The screening is part of the Austrian Documentary Days