REVIEW
The Film Verdict:
"Compelling... a finely crafted, intelligent and haunting audio-visual artwork."
The Film Verdict:
"Compelling... a finely crafted, intelligent and haunting audio-visual artwork."
Stephen Dalton
February 5th, 2026
A mysterious roving camera zooms, glides and prowls through a series of eerily empty landscapes in Hungry, a lightly experimental documentary with a stark eco-disaster message from LA-born, Vienna-based director Susanne Brandstaetter. Looking down from a great height on parched deserts, poisoned seas and rusting factories, then swooping close for melancholy rambles through derelict shopping malls and crumbling ghost towns, this montage of bleakly beautiful vistas soon reveals itself to be contemporary footage of planet Earth. No visual trickery, no production design, just a dystopian panorama of depopulated, polluted and abandoned locations. These are the liminal post-industrial badlands of the present day standing in for disturbingly plausible near-future colony collapse.One of the more formally adventurous world premieres at Rotterdam film festival this week, Hungry blends impressionistic montage, eerie soundtrack music and off-screen interview fragments into an eye-catching, often incongruously lovely whole. At times the film’s arty, coolly detached, semi-abstract style recalls the work of fellow Austrian documentary director Niklolaus Geyrhalter (Our Daily Bread, Melt) and the maverick British newsreel collagist Adam Curtis (Hypernormalisation). A combination of this strong aesthetic and newsworthy subject matter should ensure it finds an audience beyond the festival circuit.
Read more:
thefilmverdict.com/hungry/
February 5th, 2026
A mysterious roving camera zooms, glides and prowls through a series of eerily empty landscapes in Hungry, a lightly experimental documentary with a stark eco-disaster message from LA-born, Vienna-based director Susanne Brandstaetter. Looking down from a great height on parched deserts, poisoned seas and rusting factories, then swooping close for melancholy rambles through derelict shopping malls and crumbling ghost towns, this montage of bleakly beautiful vistas soon reveals itself to be contemporary footage of planet Earth. No visual trickery, no production design, just a dystopian panorama of depopulated, polluted and abandoned locations. These are the liminal post-industrial badlands of the present day standing in for disturbingly plausible near-future colony collapse.One of the more formally adventurous world premieres at Rotterdam film festival this week, Hungry blends impressionistic montage, eerie soundtrack music and off-screen interview fragments into an eye-catching, often incongruously lovely whole. At times the film’s arty, coolly detached, semi-abstract style recalls the work of fellow Austrian documentary director Niklolaus Geyrhalter (Our Daily Bread, Melt) and the maverick British newsreel collagist Adam Curtis (Hypernormalisation). A combination of this strong aesthetic and newsworthy subject matter should ensure it finds an audience beyond the festival circuit.
Read more:
thefilmverdict.com/hungry/
REVIEW
Chatterbox Film:
Immersive and inspiring... This is a film that as a multi-dimensional work, expands our world by bringing it sharply into focus.
Chatterbox Film:
Immersive and inspiring... This is a film that as a multi-dimensional work, expands our world by bringing it sharply into focus.
REVIEW: Chatterbox Film
Jamie Garfield
February 3, 2026
Hungry had its World Premiere at the 55th IFFR (Rotterdam) on 2nd February.
In the film; an alien arrives on Earth and finds the world decimated and destroyed. It scours the planet seeking to obtain information as to how this could occur. It finds ‘archive’ interviews with experts and draws its own conclusions to this reason. The Being creates the film Hungry, using said interviews, and asks was there any hope for humanity, if it was so keen on destroying itself.
Part science-fiction/very much documentary as the drone camera invades desolate abandoned properties that still exist in our world now to speak the message that we are destroying the planet with far too much ease. The cinematography of Joerg Burger is awe-inspiring at times, the inspired utilisation of drone photography pays off in maintaining our attention and focus on the problems at hand.
While it may appear to be an environmental film it carefully becomes a call to arms and a political statement – exposing hidden chains of cause and effect; the destruction of food security and the deterioration of labour markets.
Is this a desperate call to arms, or a message in a bottle that it is too late for us and future generations. This is a clever concept for a film that hopefully is celebrated, a film that is immersive and inspiring.
Director Susanne Brandstaetter states, ‘Setting the film in the near future in a world devoid of humans may seem at first downbeat and pessimistic, but actually the opposite is true. Because the film has a positive message. And though my films often show the darker sides of humanity, at heart I’m an optimist. I’m convinced that films, and that this film in particular, can make an impact and inspire people. Which is way I’m thrilled that HUNGRY has its world premiere with the diverse and discerning international audience attending the IFF Rotterdam.’
This is a film that as a multi-dimensional work, expands our world by bringing it sharply into focus.
Read more:
https://chatterboxfilm.com/2026/02/03/rotterdam-iff-hungry-2026-cinematography-of-joerg-burger-is-awe-inspiring/
Jamie Garfield
February 3, 2026
Hungry had its World Premiere at the 55th IFFR (Rotterdam) on 2nd February.
In the film; an alien arrives on Earth and finds the world decimated and destroyed. It scours the planet seeking to obtain information as to how this could occur. It finds ‘archive’ interviews with experts and draws its own conclusions to this reason. The Being creates the film Hungry, using said interviews, and asks was there any hope for humanity, if it was so keen on destroying itself.
Part science-fiction/very much documentary as the drone camera invades desolate abandoned properties that still exist in our world now to speak the message that we are destroying the planet with far too much ease. The cinematography of Joerg Burger is awe-inspiring at times, the inspired utilisation of drone photography pays off in maintaining our attention and focus on the problems at hand.
While it may appear to be an environmental film it carefully becomes a call to arms and a political statement – exposing hidden chains of cause and effect; the destruction of food security and the deterioration of labour markets.
Is this a desperate call to arms, or a message in a bottle that it is too late for us and future generations. This is a clever concept for a film that hopefully is celebrated, a film that is immersive and inspiring.
Director Susanne Brandstaetter states, ‘Setting the film in the near future in a world devoid of humans may seem at first downbeat and pessimistic, but actually the opposite is true. Because the film has a positive message. And though my films often show the darker sides of humanity, at heart I’m an optimist. I’m convinced that films, and that this film in particular, can make an impact and inspire people. Which is way I’m thrilled that HUNGRY has its world premiere with the diverse and discerning international audience attending the IFF Rotterdam.’
This is a film that as a multi-dimensional work, expands our world by bringing it sharply into focus.
Read more:
https://chatterboxfilm.com/2026/02/03/rotterdam-iff-hungry-2026-cinematography-of-joerg-burger-is-awe-inspiring/