Social Issues: Documentaries and Debates
Our Daily Bread Cert 12A
Directed by: Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Austria / Germany 2005, 1hr 32mins
26 May 08
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol

This visually stunning and evocative documentary is a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn’t always easy to digest, but in which we all take part. To the rhythm of conveyor belts and immense machines, the film looks into the places where food is produced in Europe - cool, industrial environments comprised of monumental spaces, surreal landscapes and bizarre sounds which wouldn’t be out of place in science fiction. With no voiceover or music, the film unfolds in long, slow shots both beautiful and horrific in their indictment of the industry’s ritual, mass destruction and contamination of both land and animals.

This is the story of ritual, mass destruction and contamination - the story of our very own food industry, where chicks are churned along a production line and fish are routinely sorted by technology. If you want to know the truth about what we eat, very simply: you have to see this astounding film.