Alkohol

The documentary takes alcohol not as a habit but as a substance whose effect can be measured. According to the film, because alcohol is available everywhere and is socially accepted, most people do not call it a drug even though it is psychoactive and damages cells. The director asks why we drink at all, what alcohol does inside the body and how far the industry influences society and politics; he gives figures for the size of that industry and for the number of deaths each year. Those figures and those accusations stand as the film’s own argument. The director begins by saying that he drinks himself. Andreas Pichler’s eighty seven minute documentary was completed in 2020.