Discoveries from Switzerland World Cinema

The lives of three generations of peasant farmers in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy are the focus of this unexciting, flat-footed saga by Florestano Vancini. When the grandfather (Marne Maitland) first decides to leave his job of canal-building and move to northern Italy, he takes up work as a peasant on the land of a local priest, while his oldest son Venancio (Massimo Ghini) starts driving a carriage. More of a visionary than a chauffeur, Venancio first gets involved in organizing the peasants into a kind of farmer's union, and when that movement goes under, he devotes himself to educating the farmers instead. Along the way, his mother dies, he marries Mariena (Anna Teresa Rossini), and they have children. Much to Venancio's sorrow, his own sons do not want to stay in farming, and as they grow older, only one remains at home to till the soil. In the meantime, the specter of fascism is growing stronger by the day and the clouds of war being to darken the horizon.

With a pair of scissors and some paper, he turned his art into a weapon the Nazis feared. A look back at the eventful career of satirist John Heartfield (1891-1968), pioneer of photomontage and modern graphic design.

Steven Dyer, an executive working for a giant multinational drugs company, decides to report his employer for breaches of Common Market trading regulations. One night in Basle, Switzerland, he leaves his home to post a letter, the start of a nightmare journey that leads to terrible consequences for his life, his career and for his wife and children.

“Time… Hours… Minutes… Seconds… Time does not exist, we invented it ourselves. This is a beautiful illusion that fills our life with mystical meaning. The whole of human history is a search for a loophole in time, a desire to use Him not against oneself, but for the good." The film shows the expectations of twelve people happening in parallel on a certain day at five o'clock in the evening. A subtle, thought-provoking film about the essence and meaning of time in life. For RADO Switzerland.

Documentary account of a man’s life in the face of imminent death – Francisco Varela's story told affectionately and gently, touchingly and astutely. Varela spent his life building bridges: between Western science and Eastern wisdom, neurobiology and philosophy, abstract theory and practical life. This film seeks to deconstructs the prevailing division between science and art.

Albert Renaud, a young French Canadian dreams of becoming a movie star and take the train to Hollywood. His trip is filled with adventures.

'Kurt' claims to be a sales rep. He also claims to be English in spite of his heavy Italian accent. Kurt is an habitual liar and a dangerous driver, at the very least. In the south of France he meets Léa, age 16. Between his increasingly strange dates with Léa, Kurt engages in a number of armed robberies, some successful, some not... The police are perplexed by a series of crimes including disappearances and a murder. They conclude that they are dealing with a madman... After he proposes, Léa breaks up with Kurt. The attempt to find a new girlfriend leads to a shooting by Kurt, now calling himself André. Léa's information identifies Kurt/André as Roberto Succo, psychiatric patient and parental murderer. The police hunt for Roberto covers three countries.

In the sixties the painter and sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle started her career with shooting paintings, reliefs that were fired at with paint bags. She became famous and popular for her Nanas, colorful sculptures of big and cheerful women, and for the cooperation with Jean Tinguely. The frame of this film is a tour through her tarot garden in Tuscany.

In a small town on the edge of wild country, an eccentric and delinquent mother has had enough of the rules. Crushed by her mistakes and by a society that doesn't give a damn – or a second chance – to people like her, she'll do anything to prove to her children, and to herself, that she still is a good person.

In a Milan theater, singer Vivi gives one of her big solo performances. She has no idea that it will be her last for the time being. Her old friend and manager has new plans for his theater—without her...

Alex and his girlfriend Anna have a problem: Anna couldn't be more pregnant, and neither can find an affordable flat. The only one who can help is Anna's father, Commander Reiker, a sweet but screwy military man who owns an empty house. Reiker, however, to whom the Swiss Army means everything, has problems of his own: how can Switzerland, nation of fabled warriors that even exports its troops to protect the Pope, maintain its fear-inspiring reputation with all the cost-cutting measures? The Army is being forced to save, to restructure, and to take itself seriously. To prevent his ramshackle troops from being axed, Reiker urgently needs help. And just about anyone will do. Like his future son-in-law Alex, the least capable man one could imagine. As a yoga teacher, house-husband and pacifist, Alex has what it takes to be discharged, not put in charge. The pact he concludes with Reiker will not only shake up the Swiss Army, but also Alex's relationship with Anna...

A drama directed by Martin Buchhorn based on the novel by Günter Grass. At the center of the film is artist Marcus Frank, who is informed by a talking rat about the imminent end of the world. Unfortunately, he does not take the signs of time seriously and rats conquer the earth, which cannot be stopped even by atomic bombs..

"Jolly Roger" could mean Roger Schawinski. But by definition, a "Jolly Roger" is the classic black pirate flag with skull and crossbones. This documentary tells the unvarnished story of the Swiss radio pirates who emerged in the 1970s. The focus is on Radio 24 in its wild years, when Schawinski's team broadcast from Italy, with the strongest FM station in the world at the time, straight down from Pizzo Groppera, 130 kilometers all the way to the Zurich area. Supported by numerous original documents from private filmmakers and from the SRG archives, the viewer relives the absurd radio war between David and Goliath that lasted almost four years, 24 years after this war between the radio pirates and the state power began on November 13, 1979. The many known and unknown fighters, who rallied behind their Radio Winkelried Schawinski in 1979 to help usher Switzerland into a new media age, remember the good and bad times, the demonstrations and the numerous threatened and actual closures.

If any single piece can act as a key to Ruiz, it may be the 1997 short Le Film à Venir (The Film to Come). The titular film is a holy fragment of celluloid that can only be seen by a secret society known as the Philokinetes. They watch it on a loop, somnambulating through a life that is unreal by comparison. It is the belief of the Philokinetes that film has an existence “independent from humans. Cinema, they said, is the primeval soup of a new life form. There from were to emerge pure screening creatures. Which is to say, non-topical beings.” - n+1

A teenager together with her little brother are sent to their mother for the summer, but there are complications when she goes to a nearby beach.

One of Werner Schroeter's most important and inventive works, this threadbare evocation of Jean Genet's notorious Querelle depicts the erotic adventures of two sailors through the world's seaports in the manner of a cut-rate silent movie.

In a society where the greatest concern is the size and power of one’s wings, nihilist Ciobeck tries to protect Moann. But how can one survive in a barren land populated by imprisoned-mind people?

After Thierry asks for Sabine's hand in marriage, her best friend Elsa decides to test his faithfulness and sincerity by passing herself off as Sabine's country cousin and having Sabine ask Thierry to put her up for a few days in Paris.

In 2021, an extreme heatwave gave rise to huge wildfires in the vast subarctic forests of Sakha, a northeastern republic in Siberia. The village of Shologon lies in this taiga landscape, shrouded in orange smoke and black ash. The forest is burning and the flames are approaching fast.

In his exploration of the cultural dynamic between East and West, Adolf Muschg, the most significant Swiss writer since Frisch and Dürrenmatt, searched for the other in himself in order to understand otherness.

The lives of three people faced with an uncertain future. Marguerite, 17, is uncomfortable with her family enviroment and turns to God. Claire, who desperately wants a child, encounters again a former lover. Eva asks the unemployed Jacques, who has been left by his wife and his daughter, to find a missing friend.

In Lisbon, French author Paul meets various people from his past who uncover forgotten memories.

The two 15-year-old girls Zoe and Asal are best friends. They are spending their last summer holidays together before the earnestness of life begins. But this summer their friendship is put to the test by the arrival of a backpacker whose name is Kai.

In 1990, Jean Rollin was hired to transform some footage Jesús Franco had shot in 1971 into a new jungle adventure film. Rollin gave up after a few days of shooting in a Madrid hotel garden. The film remains an unreleased short curiosity.

Despite his marginal and extrovert looks, Jérémie is a shy teenager who keeps a heavy secret: his homosexuality. While trying to find his way between his classmate and sexual fantasy Damien and his very generous but protective mother Gina, his life is about to change.

In his crowded family house, Young Freud tries to focus on his medical experiments with a "magic powder" otherwise known as cocaine. His mother calls him down to dinner, where his father and stepbrother taunt him for reaching beyond his grasp. After dinner, his mother gives Freud a special silk cravat and wishes him luck for the next day. Freud is off to see his bride's uncle - to persuade him to finally let them marry. Busy with the rabbi, her uncle derides Freud and his "magic powder." On the carriage ride home, Freud takes some of the powder and has a wild vision - which leads to the great discovery that will insure his name to the history books forever: the Oedipal complex.

The rich Westerner embarks on a journey to find his daughter who vanished in Montreal and Zurich. The disappearance is linked to a sect that selects its followers for its heritage, education and physical beauty.

Paul has left his wife and children. Now his wife and ex-mistress is on the hunt for him.

Paul, fourteen, neglects his studies to spend all his time on his moped, to the consternation of his parents.

An aspiring twentysomething writer hesitantly accompanies her equally reluctant younger sister on vacation with their deliriously happy parents, in Luis De Filippis’ resonant, cliché-free debut feature.

She was a muse, model and performer – a star, dazzling and intense. Lady Shiva managed to rise from street prostitution to the top. She lived in the fast lane and died tragically young. Her dream was to become a singer. With her companions, we trace her life during a vibrant time that kindles a yearning and provokes until today. The story of a woman’s meteoric fate and a great dream. An irrepressible desire for freedom in all its beauty and destructive force - and a stirring friendship and love.

A film about a photographer's search for the last valid image. Paradoxically, he travels to places where there is hardly any light.

A retrospective on the history of the tobacco industry, and how vaping can, and will, save lives.

In the 1770s, Swiss farmer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi established a school for poor orphaned children in the Aargau. Up to total exhaustion he sacrificed himself for his pedagogical theories. Five years later, the project of the idealistic educator failed after bloody attacks of the French. In retrospect, the disappointed Pestalozzi experiences the last few months with "his" children.

Pensioner Roli comes to Fareed's assistance when the Syrian refugee is faced with the burial of his Muslim wife. Together they stumble into a bewildering forest of Swiss bureaucracy to which Roli finds beautifully simple answer.

This documentary depicts the filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky talking about his life, his loves, his career as a filmmaker, graphic novelist, and workshop leader, and his eccentricities including tarot reader and theatrical director during The Panic Movement. Directed by Louis Mouchet, La Constellation Jodorowsky includes a lengthy on-camera interview with Jodorowsky in Spanish with subtitles. Marcel Marceau, Fernando Arrabal, Peter Gabriel, Jean "Moebius" Giraud, and Jean Pierre Vignau make appearances discussing their various projects with the director. In addition to the interview and film clips, Mouchet features some bizarre footage from Jodorowsky’s absurdist plays in which topless women splattered with paint writhe around the stage in a theatrical production meant to represent The Panic Movement, i.e., an artistic expression in which reason cannot fully express the human experience.

In 1970, the barely twenty-year-old high school student Bruno Breguet was arrested in Israel while trying to smuggle explosives into the country for the Palestinian resistance. He became radicalized during his imprisonment and joined the group around the terrorist Carlos after his release. In 1995, he mysteriously disappears.

The first film about second-generation Swiss immigrants: A Turkish ice hockey player explains why, in Switzerland, he could only fall in love with an Italian. A young Italian woman explains why she prefers to rap in English. A hip-hop artist with Hispanic origins fights for his political rights and the director reminisces on how, despite his Arabic roots, he's been persecuted as a Jew. Babylon 2 reflects the rise of a new urban culture in Switzerland, which is instigated by the second generation of immigrants and the help of electronic media.

Documentary about the psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom.

Thomas, a European, has come to Québec for some recreational fishing on his own. He then embarks on the road leading to the north of Canada, chasing after a black truck that killed the son of a young Amerindian woman. This Swiss cop in exile wants justice to be done. He has, however, other reasons for wanting to do the right thing.

In Cinque Terre on Italy’s northern Riviera, fewer than 3,000 locals endure over four million tourists each summer. Across one chaotic season, six very different lives play out in parallel, revealing a sharply funny and surprisingly tender story of paradise under pressure in the age of social media driven tourism.

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.

Josef finds a propeller hat and does everything he can to be able to fly with it. That's roughly the short film narrative of film student Claudius, who does everything in his power to finally shoot his graduation film. But making films isn't that easy, not to mention flying.

It has been almost thirty years since Filippo Dobrilla started to sculpt a giant male nude inside a cave 650 metres deep in the Apuan Alps. This almost inaccessible place has jealously protected his secret: his youthful passion for a fellow climber, a passion Filippo was only able to indulge in here in the intimacy of this cave. Even after it was over and ever since then, Filippo has been returning regularly to the cave to work on the most important sculpture of his life, a masterpiece no one will see.

Drama from the Grisons mountains in Rhaeto-Romanic. When farmer Toni goes into the mountains with his son Meltger (Bruno Cathomas) to dig for gentian roots, he takes young Senza (Pia Solèr) with him against his will. Tensions soon arise... Based on Gion Deplazes‘ story.

Jean-Luc Godard proposes a diary of his creative process. Looking at photos of three actors, Jacques Dutronc, Isabelle Huppert, and Miou-Miou, who were previously cast to play in "Sauve qui peut (la vie)," Godard speaks about great image makers: Dreyer and Wim Wenders, the painters Edward Hopper and Pierre Bonnard.

Documentary on the construction of Chandigarh, the new capital of the Indian Punjab region, planned by Albert Mayer and Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

WW2: in an occupied France, a young Jewish girl wants to become a movie star.

In the vastness of the Iranian desert, young artists strive for freedom, community, and the preservation of their cultural heritage in the ancient caravanserai of Deyr-e Gachin, while facing the harsh conditions of their surroundings.

Jonas and Silvia are enjoying a wonderful sailing holiday in the Mediterranean sea. But while sailing through the night, far away from land, they discover an overloaded refugee boat, close to sinking. They are shocked, but too afraid to help. So they call the coast guards but lose the boat out of sight into the darkness of the night. In the early morning they find themselves drifting through an ocean of dead bodies. The refugee boat has sunk. Jonas and Silvia manage to pull a few survivors out of the cold water: Syrians. This rescue marks the beginning of a dramatic conflict between the hopes and dreams of the refugees, and the fears and ideals of the holiday sailors.

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

Lili's summer holidays take an unexpected turn when her mother pressures her to ask Dorsday, a family friend, for money to keep her father out of prison. That night she loses not only her dignity but every certainty she once had.

Simon spends a summer day by the river with Enes's clique, whom he knows from the neighborhood. Between moments of uncertainty and sluggish conversations, the hours slip by. But then Marie shows up and Simon is suddenly wide awake.

Inner chaos breaks free in two families.

Vanille is a little Parisian girl who has just arrived in Guadeloupe. She will be immersed in an exotic and mysterious adventure, meeting picturesque characters and magical flowers, all embellished with a touch of Creole. These holidays promise to be rich and full of surprises!

Fifteen-year-old Matteo is attractive, albeit somewhat effeminate. The whole world is against him. He has no friends and his parents seem to live in a different universe. The pressure increases as his awkward attempts to win his father’s respect fail. One night two men carry him off: his parents send him to a remote alp, where he is forced to spend the summer working hard on a family farm. When Matteo arrives on the alp, a surprise awaits him.

A young woman obsessively trains to be a track-and-field star.

Bab El-Oued, a popular district of Algiers, in 1989, a few months after the riots. Boualem works at night in a bakery and steals the loudspeaker that was installed on his roof and was broadcasting the Imam's word... therefore preventing him from sleeping. This blunder is taken as a pretext by the Islamists to put the district under their control...