Our Daily Bread

Who makes our daily bread? Director Nikolaus Geyrhalter brings together images and information from the world of contemporary agriculture, creating a documentary that leaves a terrifyingly cold and yet lyrical impression. Impeccably composed photography mirrors the perfectly mechanised and sanitary agricultural processes, which reduce human tasks to a minimum. Unlike machinery, humans cannot work non–stop. The machine rolls on continuously, its tasks unchanging and synchronised with other activities, so that even the products seem symmetrical and identical. As if disputing the machines' benefits, the documentary seems to search for the last remains of the unique, although imperfect, human factor. The director alternates images of machinery at work with sequences of workers during breaks, which they almost always spend alone and in silence – any conversation would be drowned out by constant hum of the machines anyway. After all, the compelling images of automated vehicles cultivating vegetables in giant greenhouses, cows being prepared for insemination in laboratories, or cattle 'humanely' slaughtered by machines, speak for themselves.