Discoveries from Switzerland World Cinema

An analysis of the rise of the European far-right, increasingly present in both politics and everyday life: an inquisitive journey through France, Germany and Belgium.

A group of illegal immigrants are brought to Stockholm in a bus by a smuggler who takes all their money and passports, and then runs away.

Lucy, a 19-year old law student and intern at a Swiss television network in Geneva, comes across her double in archival footage about the woman’s liberation movement in the 70’s. Her family’s resistance to talk about this time convinces Lucy that a secret lurks behind this mysterious woman, named Geneviève.

An eccentric family portrait set during the May 1968 protests in Paris. A nine-year-old boy stays with his grandparents and uncles while his parents protest. When an illustrious guest seeks refuge in the apartment, the family’s dynamics change.

Milo, a strong-willed feminist, discovers the long-sought power to wander around freely in Baghdad by dressing in her brother’s clothes. Khalili, a young and ambitious filmmaker, realises that his camera can be the strongest of all weapons.

Paris, France, April 2020. Félix, manager of a luxury hotel, decides to start a clandestine business during the first lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

David's and Jessy's love is put to the test when Jessy unintentionally gets pregnant. The thought of becoming a father causes David to panic. Later, when they are attacked in the train and David is unable to protect his girlfriend, David's fear of not being man enough is confirmed. In desperation, he starts to inject steroids. David develops aggressive traits and becomes a threat to his girlfriend and the unborn child.

Shot in Florence, the film draws on Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and Paul Valéry’s essay on da Vinci’s creative process to explore parallels between Renaissance space and the moving image. Beavers employs rapid pans and tilts along the city’s facades, interspersed with glimpses of his own face, linking camera movement to the filmmaker’s investigative gaze. The work marks a turning point in his practice, foregrounding presence and perception as central to his method. (Note: The film was re-edited and re-released in 1999.)

The brain of a male engineer is transplanted into a female’s body. He soon finds it very frustrating to cope with the daily sexist discrimination most women deal with. For example, he is surprised when no one will hire a female engineer. When he is faced with dealing with female sexuality, he quickly begins exhibiting lesbian tendencies.

The efforts of an aspiring filmmaker to include an unwilling woman in his production.

A famous French filmmaker is hired by a major Hollywood producer to make a documentary on the state of post-Cold War Russia. The filmmaker, though, subverts the project by stubbornly remaining in France and casting himself as the title character of Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot," offering up a series of typically Godardian musings on art, politics, the nature of images and the future of cinema.

Three years ago Ariane left Antoine, sending him a postcard announcing her departure for the mountains with a certain Alexandre. After a long journey abroad, Antoine returns to the site of his former relationship, where he meets Alfred, recently abandoned by Ariane.

Born with an unusual defect that left her without a navel, she grows up feeling like she doesn’t quite belong. Her body and her being carry traces of something foreign, something she cannot understand. To escape this strangeness, she develops a fascination with watching — always the observer, never the participant. But when she encounters a man, her fear of closeness begins to give way, turning into obsession. Gradually, her watching crosses boundaries: from distance to intimacy, from desire to intrusion.

Ivan and Chiara meet on a Sicilian island to prepare the wedding for Ivan’s brother and Chiara’s best friend. Despite the fact that Ivan is determined not to repeat the failure of his last relationship and Chiara does not want to jeopardise her marriage, the two fall in love with each other. They resolve to live their relationship for only a few days and then break it off when the wedding guests arrive on the island. But can love be controlled? Or is it love that controls us?

In the Documentary The singer, composer, writer and bamba Martinho da Vila guides the viewer through the gigantic world of samba investigating the origins of the rhythm, highlighting its importance in different spheres, telling stories about his career and presenting his heart association, Grêmio Recreativo Samba School Unidos de Vila Isabel.

Live performance from the Zurich Opera House, January 2002.

Five stories, all taking place on New Year's Eve in Zurich, Switzerland.

Is the WHO sick? The filmmaker and mother Lilian Franck reveals clandestine influences by the tobacco, pharmaceutical and nuclear industries on the organization. She shows a frightening portrayal of our present society, in which governmental politics is becoming obsolete. "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." - Martin Luther King

Algarve, late 90s. Following the death of her grandmother, Milene - a strong young woman full of life despite a slight mental handicap - divides her life between her family of notables and a Cape Verdean family that keeps her going, whom she met when her grandmother died. The wind that whistles in the cranes plunges us into the world of two families against the backdrop of Portugal's recent past.

A woman comes to America from Germany through unfortunate circumstances and has to go through a number of experiences and changes.

From Paris to the Canadian wilderness, Elisa, a young writer must reunite with her ex-lover, to reach for her dreams of success.

Anna and Thomas' evening takes a surprising turn when their upstairs neighbors make them a spicy offer.

Adalbert, a paranoid, overprotective single dad imposes a set of 20 rules on his daughter Sylvie before she leaves the small town of Ormont-Dessus for university. Making sure that she obeys them perfectly, he secretly follows her to Basel, but ends up falling in with a party crowd and breaking all the rules himself.

Produced in an era before 24-hour programming cycles, Video 50 was initially used as a late night filler on TV stations in Germany, France, Belgium, and Switzerland. Random, surreal, and unexpected, Video 50 resembles the dream cycle of a dormant TV station after it conscious programming has ceased. Its structure and form anticipate the dissociated sequence of moving images we are now accustomed to encountering on YouTube and social media.

After waking up from a year-long coma, an insecure young man must fight his controlling father in order to discover what really happened to his seemingly absent mother, as the true consequences of his past actions unravel before him. Richard is stuck in a limbo of denial and lost in the past, thinking that he can essentially reverse it and bring back the dead – with deadly consequences.

A wide variety of Iraqis in exile meet at Café Abu Nawas in London, including the architect Amal, the poet Taufiq and the gay IT specialist Muhannad. They all want to finally feel free in London - something that was denied them in their homeland. But adversity threatens...

The story of two young lovers takes a tragic turn as the girl falls in love with the boy's father.

Their family name alone evokes horror: Himmler, Frank, Goering, Hoess. This film looks at the descendants of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime: men and women who were left a legacy that indelibly associates them with one of the greatest abominations in history. What is it like to have grown up with a name that immediately raises images of genocide? How do they live with the weight of their ancestors' crimes? Is it possible to move on from the crimes of their ancestors?

Tetro Rouge is a post-apocalyptic adventure tale in which Skye, a young survivor, inherits a mysterious map from her late father. Pursued by a group of deadly mercenaries, Skye runs into Tetro, a shady drifter with a dark past. Together they set off on a race to find humanities future. The hunt is on. Hunted by the power-hungry fanatic Hector and his group of deadly mercenaries looking to restore order to what's left of humanity, Eric soon realizes that he is unable to complete his task. With his last breath he hands Skye a mysterious map containing the secret to humanity's future. Torn between her need for revenge and a quest to fulfill her father's dying wish, Skye meets Tetro, a shady drifter with a dark past who joins her on a search for salvation. The hunt is on when Skye, Tetro and Hector set off on a perilous race to the edge of the map in search for humanity’s last chance.

A teenage girl helps an escaped fugitive flee Germany into France, after extracting a promise that he will help her commit suicide.

David, a recently fired scrapyard worker and Marie, a prostitute, both about 20 years old, meet on New Year's Eve in Berlin and decide to run away together. As David's arm is plastered from an accident Marie continues to prostitute herself to finance their restless journey through the Ruhr area. Their love and their will to survive guide them though all problems.

Inspired by a Cesar Pavese’s short story, this film has as its main question the relationship with the mother. After killing someone, Meleagros is killed by his own mother, from whom he had never disconnected.

Achille, 13, awaits, full of hope, the release from prison of his father, unknown and fantasized. His dream of living as a threesome, like a real family, will be seriously undermined by a mother exhausted from waiting and this father who is unsuitable and made irresponsible by so many years of incarceration. Will this vulnerable person with a flamboyant past be able to keep the promise he made to his son to never live apart from him again?

While silent-film star Charlie Chaplin may have charmed American audiences with the onscreen antics of his lovable "Tramp" character, the actor's private life was marred by a series of public scandals that eventually pushed him into exile. In addition to his penchant for much younger women, Chaplin was unjustly hounded by Senator Joe McCarthy's notorious anti-Communist witch hunts, for which the U.S. revoked his visa in 1952. A bitter and disenchanted Chaplin responded by moving his family to Switzerland, where he remained until his death in 1977. This documentary chronicles Chaplin's life and career during those so-called "forgotten years" (during which he became a prolific and highly respected film-score composer) through previously unreleased archival footage and intimate interviews with his friends and family, including his children Geraldine, Michael, and Eugene.

Chubby is the nickname of Kevin, a 12 years old kid already weights 100 kilos (220.46 lb). If he keeps devours fries, pastries and ice cream everyday, he's gonna have heart attack sooner or later unless he decides to change his diet to turn around and stop eating junk food.

Nightclub singer La Paloma succumbs to the persistent courting of a chubby, rich admirer and marries him. Before the marriage, she was thought to be dying, but soon she is well. She believes her husband's love has cured her, but her efforts to love him begin to fade as she discovers true love with her husband's old school friend.

Zurich Opera House production of Franz Léhar's operetta, with Dagmar Schellenberger, Rodney Gilfry, and Ute Gfrerer in lead roles. Baron Zeta is desperate that the fabulously wealthy widow Hanna Glavari marry a Pontevedrian man so that her fortune remains in the country. He attempts to match her and his handsome attaché, Danilo. It turns out that Danilo and Hanna had had a love affair in years past. Nevertheless, Danilo now refuses to love her because he doesn't want to appear like he is only interested in her money...

After arriving in 1940 New York, Freddy struggles to find work. His world of refugee acquaintances includes the depressed daughter of a poet/delicatessen owner, an aging surgeon who cannot find work, and a lovable charlatan photographer.

Barbara Hug is a young radical lawyer fighting Switzerland's antiquated prison system in the 1980s. Walter Stürm is in and often escaping out of jail becoming known as the Jailbreak King. When the two meet an unlikely alliance is formed.

Angelo and two of his buddies set out to rob a Swiss bank, and from the start things don't go well. The man driving the getaway car packed up and left before anyone could connect him with the crime, and Angelo's other partner got shot and killed. The best he can do is grab someone's cash-filled briefcase and take a car and its driver hostage. It turns out that the driver is the daughter of the bank director, so he figures that she's good for ransom money and begins negotiations for that. Meanwhile, the briefcase he took at the bank turns out to have belonged to a man who is willing to hire killers to get it back for him. The situation grows increasingly perilous for him, and he decides to flee the scene but not before he has won the heart of his lovely hostage.

Angelo and two of his buddies set out to rob a Swiss bank, and from the start things don't go well. The man driving the getaway car packed up and left before anyone could connect him with the crime, and Angelo's other partner got shot and killed. The best he can do is grab someone's cash-filled briefcase and take a car and its driver hostage. It turns out that the driver is the daughter of the bank director, so he figures that she's good for ransom money and begins negotiations for that. Meanwhile, the briefcase he took at the bank turns out to have belonged to a man who is willing to hire killers to get it back for him. The situation grows increasingly perilous for him, and he decides to flee the scene but not before he has won the heart of his lovely hostage.

Cecilia is too afraid one night to let her housekeeper's son into the house. The next day his dead body is found.

Croatia, 7th of January 1992: In the middle of the war, a young journalist's body is discovered dressed in the uniform of an international mercenary group. Twenty years later, his cousin Anja Kofmel investigates his story.

Mariana, an upper-class Chilean, feels a strange attraction towards her riding teacher, Juan, a former colonel with a shady past.

A group of tourists on the flight back home remembers on their sexual adventures they had in several nightclubs at their vacation in Bangkok.

Twenty years ago, Henrique left Portugal for the peaceful Netherlands. A colonial war veteran, he desperately wanted to get away from his country which still defended a doomed African empire and from his traditional, landowning family. He’s back now. Everything is different. «Europe» knocked on the door and sprawled itself fast. Even the South had to face wrenching changes. And Henrique himself will have to face many events. Love affairs and dangerous threats. And the chalenge of his future.

In 2011 the young married Swiss couple Daniela Widmer and David Och got kidnapped while being on a long trip along the old Silk Road in Pakistan. They were hand over to the Taliban and were held as hostages for 8 months under the most precarious conditions.

A film based on Jacques Chessex' novel of the same title; featuring André Wilms as Chessex and Bruno Ganz as Arthur Bloch, Swiss Jew killed by Swiss Nazis.

This is the story of an encounter. An encounter between a groupie and the rock star she has always worshipped, This is a story of fascination and despair. She has loved him for many years, idolized his every move, lived for his songs. He is a shell. Scarred, alcoholic and paranoid, ruined by success. They find each other one morning, in a hotel room. He needs to be saved and all she wants is to protect him.

The first ascent of the Matterhorn was made on July 14, 1865 by Edward Whymper, Francis Douglas, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, Michel Croz and two guides from Zermatt, Peter Taugwalder father and son. Douglas, Hudson, Hadow and Croz are killed on the descent after Hadow slips and drags the other three men down the north face. Whymper and the two Taugwalders, who survive, are later accused of having cut the rope that connected them to the rest of the group so as not to be dragged into the fall, but the ensuing investigation finds no evidence of their guilt and they are acquitted. The Matterhorn is the last great peak in the Alps to be conquered and its ascent marks the end of the golden age of mountaineering. One hundred and fifty years later, a team undertakes the same expedition in order to unravel the mystery.

The psychiatrist Simon embarks with his newly wed Paula on a wedding trip to Marmorera, the home of his ancestors. The body of a young woman is found on the shore of the reservoir. A little later, the same woman - alive but without an identity - was taken to the Psychiatric University Clinic Burgholzli in Zurich, where Simon works. The idea of ​​the film is based on a true story: in 1954 the entire old Marmorera was demolished and flooded to prevent protests against the planned dam above the village. Only the cemetery with the bones of the dead was moved.

A former police officer accidentally killed a bystander while hunting criminals. Now he lives alone, continues to search for the criminal and spies on a young neighbor. His relationship with her becomes dangerous for both of them.

An expatriate in Turkey, Claire pays the services of a smuggler to flee the country with her only daughter, whose custody she has just lost. But he abandons them in a dilapidated house in the middle of the forest.

A deaf and dumb accountant suffers from a psychic trauma in his childhood. He is collecting puppets and mutilates female bodies in the mortuary. After his secret love died by an accident he starts to kill.

Escaping a Nazi prison train in war-torn Italy, an American and a British soldier set out for the Swiss border and find themselves leading a multi-national party of refugees for the Italian underground.

Moments and aspects of the life of a contemporary married couple undergoing a metamorphosis.

Unhappy in their marriage, Suzanna and Andrew buy a male sex robot called James, who consequently uncovers the deep fractures in their relationship.

A little girl on a red sofa is watching terrifying daily pictures on tv.

Country girl Margit sits for the artist Sándor, from Budapest. She is fascinated and charmed by him, and agrees to accompany him to the capital, so he can complete the painting there. Disillusionment sets in, however, when Sándor wins a prize with the finished portrait and loses interest in her. Margit recognizes that her true happiness lies at home, with Pista, her faithful lover.

An account of the life and work of Swiss painter, sculptor, architect and designer H. R. Giger (1940-2014), tormented father of creatures as fearsome as they are fascinating, inhabitants of nightmarish biomechanical worlds.