Discoveries from Switzerland World Cinema

Filmaker Alina Marazzi assembles old home movies trying to piece together the life of her mother, Liseli, who committed suicide when Alina was seven years old.

Anna and her rebellious daughter Lena live on the outskirts of Riga. Lena skips school and falls into dangerous circles. When her best friend dies of an overdose and Lena narrowly survives, they have to flee abroad to escape the police. They find refuge with Anna's cousin in Switzerland. But Lena's resistance jeopardises their new start.

After 40 years Alain Tanner again travels to the port of Genoa, where he worked for a shipping company as a 22-year-old. On the back of his own memories he depicts the rough world of the dockworkers, another of those trades that has undergone fundamental changes as a result of recessions, modernisation and liberalisation. “The visual impression of the harbour and the city has changed very little, but what goes on there nowadays is completely different. The city is still as beautiful and alien and somewhat sad as before. But the port is dying, like so many other major ports. In Genoa, as elsewhere in Italy, the economic, social and political climate is highly explosive. But you also feel that things are in flow and the country is on the verge of some far-reaching changes. (...) In this film I wanted to explore my own memories of Genoa, uncover its present and guess at its future. Genoa, this beautiful, this sad, this alien town has become for me a metaphor for society in change.”

A Venezuelan government official is sent to Switzerland to work on a project, strangely descending into sickness as unsettling events unfold back home.

The 23-year-old Bruno accidentally clashes with society, the judicial and the police. Once he has exceeded the legal limits, he is stuck to the wrong side of the law.

Inspired by conversations between Cezanne and his writer friend Joachim Gasquet, the film blends art, philosophy and landscape to approach the figure of the artist through the senses.

Metamorfosi is a veritable dance ballet on the rocks, performed by a great climber, Patrick Berhault, set on the picturesque French Riviera and the Lingurian coast. Berhault's movements, in the sea, in caves, on rocks and precipices, are extremely difficult but are above all executed to give the movement an aesthetic value. Matemorfosi is the story of a cycle without words, told with gestures and music. Climber Monica Dalmasso also participates in the film.

A husband orders his wife to recover a lost slipper. The wife enlists the aid of her friend, Beatrice (Betty Stockfield) to bring the slipper to her in Switzerland, and Georges (Roger Treville) follows Betty.

Alex and Sacha are shaken up by the closure of the online video game on which they met. As Alex and his mother go on holiday to the south of France where Sacha lives, the two teenagers will attempt to meet up and finish the game together.

The plot revolves around the residential complex "Venice", which cannot be completed for seven years. Twenty would-be owners gather in one of the apartments to start negotiations with a potential investor who wants to build a restaurant on the first floor of the building, but this space is already owned by the priest. Some of the tenants must donate their own area, so as not to anger God.

Delusional Irish poets Clyde and Weston ditch their stalker/fan and blow her life savings on a road trip to the Swiss Alps in search of spiritual enlightenment. What follows is a collision with a UFO hoax, an earth-worshipping cult, a fog-bound mountain barn, and a celebrity poetry reading, before the pair stumble through a tunnel into Nevermore, a pristine, eerily polite town frozen in a 1950s American aesthetic where poetry is outlawed, phones are banned, and time itself appears to loop.

Grand festivities are held at the court of the Duke of Mantua. But the community which enjoys itself no longer knows values and amuses itself out of deadly boredom. The most cynical of all is court jester Rigoletto. He only wants to protect his daughter Gilda against the depraved world. He prohibits her everything – the young woman, however, goes her own way.

This film is not a classic portrait but a documentary using fiction to bring Martin Suter’s novels to life while introducing us to the author behind the stories on a whole new level. ‘Fantasy is usually more true than reality itself’ says Suter.

After the death of his parents, Beat Matter grows up with the Escher family. Their son Dominik is his best friend. As a young man, Beat enlists for two years of service with the Papal Swiss Guard in Rome. Shortly before starting his service, he meets Dominik's fiancée Jacqueline at an Alpine festival. He falls in love, even though he knows that Jacqueline is already promised to someone else.

CIA Agent Walter Adams was kidnapped while he was undercover on a secret mission. He wakes up in the middle of nowhere tied to a tree, and tries to escape fighting to stay alive.

A documentary edited from ORLAN's seventh surgery in the The Reincarnation of Sainte-ORLAN series which aired live, vis satellite from New York in 1993.

It would seem to be a night like any other as the projectionist powers down the cinema after the last screening - if it weren't for his increasing certainty that there is something lurking in a corner of the deserted cinema.

Shot entirely from a boat on a lake, this evocative film confronts the viewer resolutely with his or her sensitivity for the moment. Surrounded by sounds of animal life, both from the lake and the neighbouring forests, this film takes us through the seasons. Sounds of water, the wind and a human presence.

At the end of World War II, a village witnesses and participates in the conflict between border guards and smugglers. Between good and bad deals, hypocrisy, zest for life, self-serving love affairs, and existential doubts, the story, which offers a fresh and realistic glimpse into rural life, ends in tragedy.

In the narrow kitchen of a family home, two women in their fourties are chatting. Out of the blue, one of them kisses the other. But after their intimate moment, the reality of their lives kicks in. Both women are married, in fact one to the other's brother.

Bussenghi is a cross-border worker who is late to work every day because of Swiss border guard Bernasconi. In a twist of fate, the two nemeses will have to coexist 24 hours a day and, aside from teasing each other about the differences between Italy and Switzerland, they begin to understand and help each other, gradually realizing that they need each other to get out of the trouble they ended up in.

When the cookie crumbles, it will be captured in stop motion!

Spring 1945, Heinrich Zwygart, Swiss ambassador to Germany flees bombed-out Berlin after eight years of service in the capital of the Reich. This is the end of a terrible mandate, during which he had to make fatal compromises to preserve the neutrality and security of his country. He went through the war, but will he survive the peace?

A former war photographer tries to ward off his personal ghosts by taking pictures of trees only. He lives alone among olive trees in southern Italy. One day he decides to cross the sea. Once in Albania, he goes near the location where he had made his last war picture, as if he was retracing his steps. He finds a tree he wants to photograph. He is just about to do so, when he discovers a runaway girl hiding in it with the sole objective of crossing the sea and getting to the other side. The man has no choice. He has to flee with her, follow her and guide her along until a storm separates them.

"GEMINI - THE TWIN STARS" is a story of star-crossed friendship, growing from one young man's flight from danger and another's quest for adventure. This lush and romantic thriller moves from New York to Geneva, and from remote Swiss mountain villages to the jet-set night life of Mykonos.

The Munich criminal investigation department uncovers an international call girl ring. Before the boss of the organization can be apprehended, two young women who wish to leave the business are murdered.

A parrot has gone missing in a dreary Swiss suburb. While its owner is on her quest to recapture the bird, the parrot's longing for freedom seems to increasingly rub off on humans and animals, who feel trapped in their daily routines.

For 9 months, Irina has had no news of her son who was captured during the battle of Marioupol. We conduct an investigation in the small Ukrainian town where she lives to try to find out what happened to him.

Farmer Heiri has sold his calf and celebrates his temporary wealth in the big city. But in doing so he is confronted with many temptations and dangers: pickpockets, second-rate artists and prostitutes who all try to grab the money of this naive man from Hausen. A 1978 recording of the well-known Zurich boulevard theatre piece.

Jonathan, 13 years old, spends his summer holidays at a mountain campsite with his mother. One afternoon, his mother sends him to walk the dog in order to receive her lover. The lover's son, accompanied by another teenager, makes Jonathan drink Pastis and drags him into a cruel and sadistic game. The humiliation will reach a point of no return and will mark all three of them for life.

Noah, a young man in search of his identity, is invited by his best friend, Ethan, to take part in the expeditions he organises with his gang in the depths of the metro. In this in-between world, where they compete to find their place, Ethan will challenge the teenagers to jump over the rails before the train arrives. For Noah, risking his life seems to be the only way to be accepted and above all to exist in Ethan's eyes.

Emil, Bruno, Fritz and Dieter-Thomas are four fit pensioners and old friends. They want to refresh their friendship with a cozy golf weekend in the mountains. Having just arrived at the hotel, Emil confronts his friends with serious news: he is terminally ill and has decided to put an end to his life with a deadly pill here and now with his friends. Now he asks the men for nothing less than to support him. The responses to this request could not be more different.

Bern, 1979: a tower block called Tscharnergut. A group of friends get together to make a film about their experiences growing up in suburban Switzerland.

Pascal, 53, and Carole, 28, are shepherds. In the month of November 2010, they embark on their long winter transhumance: four months during which they will have to cover 600 km in the Swiss-French region, accompanied by three donkeys, four dogs and eight hundred sheep. An exceptional adventure is about to begin: they brave the cold and the bad weather day in day out, with a canvas cover and animal skins as their only shelter at night. This saga reveals a tough and exacting profession, requiring constant improvisation and unflinching attention to nature, the animals and the cosmos. An eventful journey with surprise encounters, moving reunions with farmer friends, nostalgic figures of country life that is shrinking away fast. Αn adventure film, a contemporary road movie, a reflection of our current world, which takes us back to our roots and our inner questions.

Female reporter goes on a trip around the world following genius fashion designer in a search for perfect article for her magazine.

A group of high school students meet to participate in the national parade with their school. A student, is bullied by the teacher because of her nationality. They react, defend her and the conflict becomes intense. To avoid the consequences, they decide to run away. They settle on the top of a nearby hill and spend the rest of the day there, as an act of escapism. Up there, they seem to have forgotten their anxieties and problems, as if they were in another world.

{ Auto-biography of all the video experience Gabriel had based on his childhood’s productions. }

For decades, animal rights activist and filmmaker Karl Ammann has been documenting the illegal wildlife trade. In the company of director Laurin Merz, this investigative journey takes us to Namibia, where 22 elephants are captured and then airlifted in a cargo plane to zoos in the United Arab Emirates.

When Lynn comes back home after having been away for a year, she suddenly feels like a stranger among her own. An intimate journey into the world and mind of this young woman, striving to love and to find her own identity.

The story of a neurotic bachelor who, after marrying a beautiful woman, submits her to increasingly deranged accusations of infidelity and pleas for forgiveness.

One moment. Four versions. What seems the same is never really so. Experience a film that shows just how different the same moment can be – depending on how it’s told.

Kiko is a nightmare for all the animals. He bullies them all the time, even the smallest mouse can't escape from him! How could the animals stand out and make him understand that they are just like him, capable of emotions, love, and deserve respect?

Lena, 12 years old, lives alone with her mother in an old, remote house in the countryside. Her refuge is a tree from which she observes her elder sister Marie, and Eloi, her future husband, who have come for a family weekend. Gradually, Lena becomes fascinated by Eloi and tries to take him with her onto her tree.

Even with good acting, pleasant music, and artistic photography, this "love-boat" story of romance is more like Alice in Wonderland rather than Alice on the streets of Zurich. The Zurich Alice is a flautist who plays for the passersby like many another street or Metro musician. While so engaged, she meets a VIP Russian flautist who has defected and is living in the city. He falls in love with her and as a gesture of his devotion decides to arrange her solo concert debut. Meanwhile, Alice easily figures out what his plans are and devises her own secret scheme. When the day of the performance arrives, her Russian heartthrob is in for a flattering surprise, sure to end his bachelor status. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Sabine Lidl presents Siri Hustvedt’s journey from her first novel to being a leading voice in contemporary literature – a film about feminist perspectives, Hustvedt’s soulmate Paul Auster, and the power of thought.

Together with his wife and journalist Amalia, Werner van Gent worked as a war journalist in Iraq, Pakistan and the Balkans.

In a nursing home, a young man visits his grandmother. As she constantly repeats that she wants to go home, his grandson visits her now empty apartment, seeking to capture memories of a fading past.

After the death of her mother, Alice, who was born out of wedlock, learns that her father, who was thought to be dead, is still alive. Unopened letters from the estate put the 18-year-old on the trail of the composer Max Rab, one of her mother's ex-lovers. Under a pretext, Alice manages to move in with the supposed Rab father. When she falls in love with Max, things get complicated...

Two musicians whose biographies could not be more different. And yet, they are not only linked by a passion for music that they share with their spouses. All three have enjoyed successful careers in their home countries, and now need to find new bearings in Switzerland. Parallel to her concerts, pianist Tamriko Kordzaia, originally from Georgia, gives lessons at a music school, composer and singer Samir Essahbi, who is Moroccan, performs regularly with his band, and Turkish singer Ülkü Fazilet Bozkurt is starting to perform again.

A girl returns from a trip out of the country and is given a strip-search for drugs when she re-enters Switzerland. Lacking a place to stay, she looks up an old friend of hers and stays with him, working to pay for food for both of them. In the casual manner of such arrangements, several more people enter the scene to stay: a rich kid who has been disinherited and a girl who is an escaped convict. The working girl has been hiding some of her wages in her clothes, and the two young men steal the money, buy a car, and hare off looking for excitement.

Hugo Wiederkehr, as a dutiful bank employee, has to deal with all kinds of customers. Among other things, with the industrialist Meissen and his pretty daughter Christine, with whom he falls in love. However, it remains unmatched because it belongs to a different social class. He also works as a hobbyist and inventor, which also requires a lot of money. When his employer refuses to give him a loan because his father is in prison for fraud, he quits disappointed.

A group of scientists are carrying out ice core drilling on the last remaining glacier, but have not returned any new results for weeks. Data analyst Sasha is tasked with investigating the situation on site.

In a single static shot a man is threatened with death at another's gunpoint.

A short film based on the German fairy tale.

Editor-in-chief Isabelle has published an extremely critical article about a hotel in Morocco in her travel magazine when she meets Max, the man of her dreams. Unfortunately, this man happens to be the owner of the hotel that Isabelle has slammed in her review. A love story full of white lies and secrets unfolds between the two, because Max also has something to hide...

At the urging of his over-protective father, André Carel, a young bourgeois from Paris, travels to Lake Geneva to rejuvenate his health. There, he falls in love with Reine, the beautiful daughter of a simple boatsman. In order to impress her solely through his personality and character, he conceals his wealthy origins and, disguising himself as a migrant laborer, takes up work on board her father's ship.