Discoveries from Switzerland World Cinema

When I came of age, my father gave me a film about my life. It infuriated me, because I had attempted to get away from his camera all my childhood. My father, filmmaker Joschy Scheidegger, documented our family obsessively. It was only when he died that I was impelled to take over not only his extensive film archive, but also his camera. «My Life as a Film» is a personal search for the surprising truths hidden behind my father’s pictures. A philosophical family story about filming and the attempt to capture life.

Franz Engi returns to his hometown after being away for 30 years. A lot of things have changed in that time. There are only few families with children left in the village and that is why the school is about to be closed down. Franz decides to save the school and teacher Eva's job in a very unusual way....

Documentary about stuntman Rémy Julienne.

Two men talk about their anxiety-induced panic attacks.

A descrition of a game between two teams where one of the teams change the rules.

Cows graze atop rolling hills, the Säntis cable car glides towards the mountain station, and behind it, 2.5 million light years away, the Andromeda Nebula shimmers. In Urnäsch, winter is drawing in: the local butcher cutting the last geraniums from their window boxes and the men’s choir is rehearsing. But when the streetlights go out, leaving only the stars twinkling above, the village youth gather and dreams of other worlds are discussed.

Clara and Mika, a young couple, leave for their very first romantic week-end. An unusual country lodge awaits them for a two-day period of rest and recuperation. The appearance of a curious and disturbing character will interfere with their stay at the lodge. Strange phenomena occur that are going to interfere with the couple's perception of reality as well as their destiny.

Within the framework of the “Half a Century of Locarno, Thoughts on the Future” project, seven directors, Idrissa Ouedraogo among them, have the chance to express their vision of the future of the film industry by means of a short film. “The state of the film industry the world is a vast issue,” says the director from Burkina Faso. “I would rather speak about my films, about African films and their relationship with the world”.

Musical comedy about a marriage registrar.

For mysterious reasons, two watchmen are made to guard access to the river in an area of Lausanne where retirees and immigrant families live. Through the different people they encounter, a territory takes shape and a friendship is born. Tizian Büchi creates a fable—part documentary, part fiction and tinged with magical realism—to subtly question our surveillance society.

Documentary about the labyrinthine bunker built underground in Berlin around 1940 and the survival of the people in the shelters during the Second World War.

Exorcism in Switzerland in the 21st Century? Two film students are planning to shoot a documentary about a retired priest who practices exorcisms. After going one step too far, the students at the point of no return.

As she is showering, dressing, putting on her make-up, a woman bares her soul.

Six sisters live together with their grandmother in a house in Zurich. They are all preoccupied with their own lives. One summer a quiet boarder and the return of the oldest sister disrupt the usual family order, triggering a battle against the rigidity of former roles.

Two strangers are meeting in dreams. A young woman who was raised by her grandmother and a divorced father who sees his daughter only on weekends. They start to be attracted to each other…

Eros, a young adult, loses his bearings when he falls into depression, personified by Ryan, an intrusive imaginary character. Eros must fight against this entity to free himself and climb back up the slope, metaphorically represented by the ascent of the peak of the damned.

Amor Fati seeks out parts that complete each other. These are portraits of couples, friends, families and pets and their owners. They share the intimacy of daily life, habits, beliefs, tastes and even some physical traits. From their faces, from the choreography of their gestures, we unveil the story that binds them.

Women and men board a mysterious train that takes them onto a bridge suspended between the land and the sky. Each in their own way experiences this threshold of walking on the edge of a dream, as though on a rite of passage heading to a certain end.

First chapter of a trilogy of short films about the emotions arising from the five stages of grief. Here, "Denial" and "Anger."

Alone during the lockdown, Clèm overcomes her solitude by sexting with strangers. One night she receives strange messages from elsewhere...

Him, her, and the other one.

Christian, Ben and Jean-Marie are fighting for political change of power and free elections in their country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But the incumbent President refuses to relinquish power. How can the course of events be changed? Must they join forces with the historical opposition leader and his powerful party? Is dialogue still possible or must they resign themselves to a popular uprising and the risk of a blood bath?

A Swiss tourist enjoys the services of a luxury hotel after being mistaken for a wealthy businessman.

Discover why The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard is the patron saint of creativity, and how her influence resonates today. The 12th-century abbess was a Christian mystic and visionary. She was also a musical composer, writer, and healer who created natural remedies widely used in Europe today.

Does history with all its nightmares have to keep repeating itself? What bolsters the thin layer that shields us from the abyss?

Behind the scenes of a large construction site in western Switzerland, we dive into the world of construction where most of the workers are foreigners.

Everyday life in a house where death is omnipresent, but in which, in contrast to a retirement home, mainly younger people live. Bailey House is a former hotel where 44 AIDS patients live. A refuge for a fraction of people suffering from AIDS in the city of New York, where they find shelter, supervised by a competent team. Fellow sufferers, perhaps even friends in the face of a disease that is stigmatized by society and means social isolation for most of those affected. People of different social backgrounds meet here. However, the largest proportion is made up of young black formerly drug addicts. Bailey House, the last stop in their young life, is often even the first real home, in most cases also the most beautiful place where they have lived so far.

8mm film by Swiss artist Roman Signer.

In 1982, filmmaker Ekaterina Eremenko was among 26 students accepted into Russia’s elite natural science school. A golden future lay ahead of them, but the birth of perestroika and the collapse of the old order meant that that future was no longer certain. Eremenko sets out to discover what happened to her classmates and how the seismic political changes of the 1980s affected her generation.

The disappearance of bearded vultures in Switzerland was caused by false accusations of them being dangerous, but this is not the only issue treated in this film.

Bernardo is a police officer from Tessin. Though scared of water, he's forced to investigate a series of disappearances on the edges of the Lake Maggiore, where women have been mysteriously vanishing for generations.

Portrait of Zurich's sex worker, mother, model, singer and actress Irene Staub. Better known as Lady Shiva.

Homeo is a mental construction made from visual reality, just as music is made from auditive reality. I put in this film no personal intentions. All my intentions are personal. I’ve made this film thinking of what the audience would have liked to see, not something specific that I wanted to say: what the film depicts is above all reality, not fiction. Homeo is, for me, the search for an autonomous cinematographic language, which doesn't owe anything to traditional narrative, or maybe everything. Cinema is, above all, part of a way of life which will become more and more self-assured in the years and century to come. We are part of this change, and that’s why I tried in Homeo to establish a series of perpetual changes, in constant evolution or regress, which tries, above all, to focus on things.

Solidarity is an irresistible feeling we celebrate, but in fact, it is mostly contradictory. This documentary delves into the phenomenon itself and uncovers the universal power of human rights.

2025 – The earth’s resources are severely weakened and the authorities are struggling to find viable solutions. Oxygen becomes a priority and the main concern of governments. The population has been living to the rhythm of alerts for the last two weeks and finds itself forced to take refuge for two hours a day in specially equipped basements with self – managed air ventilation.

Dynamic Wisdom is a housing collective that exists since 2017. It brings together 16 people from Nigeria and 4 people born in Switzerland who have pooled their energy to respond to an emergency situation: sleeping on the street.

The world is on the verge of collapse. Climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, infertile soils, overpopulation... Frédéric Choffat's two children, 13 and 17 years old, confront him.

On the edge of the Sahara, in Burkina Faso, the village of Kamsé is being destroyed by the effects of creeping desertification. To ensure the village's survival, the villagers decided to embark on the planning of a tree perimeter.

For the first time ever, Matteo has cheated on his wife Mara, who is on vacation, and spent a night of wild, steamy sex with Angela, whom he recently met by chance. He awakens with a headache and a satisfied memory of the night. But a message from the wife tells him that she is coming back home because of a hitch and leave him prey to panic. He tries to hide every trace of the adultery but, plagued by guilt-feelings and fear of being caught, enters into a paranoiac spiral, and his clumsy attempts to fix things only manage to create more damage.

Check in with riders around the world as they continue to showcase progressive skiing in its truest form. It took nine cinematographers hanging from cable-cams, helicopters, helmet cams, and one entire year of filming to document this innovative masterpiece.

The story of two pensioners, Max Wanner and Fritz Pollatschek. Wanner needs a new liver, Pollatschek a new heart. But how are two men in their seventies supposed to get hold of a donor organ? A hair-raising and eventful search begins...

In the Twenties a young and solitary alchemist dedicates his existence to collecting and experimenting with botanical species… and nymphs. But something is still missing in this collection, something that could even destroy it.

Plagued by feelings of guilt, the meeting of two brothers confronts them with feelings that should not be experienced.

A film about the state of people who are forced to live their exile as an outer event, but also as an inner destiny. That condition involves several time levels: a lost past, a disturbed present and a future rimmed with hope. In the village of Zara wandering souls are searching for things lost: letters, childhood, parents… Zara lies at the heart of an eternal search for a place of consolation and respite a search, during which memories and dreams gradually merge into an imagined present. (swissfilms.ch)

Sam, a potter in Geneva, and his sister Catherine, a medical student in Belgium, have nothing in common except their childhood memories and their love for their mother, who was left alone after her divorce. Catherine does not know that her beloved mother is suffering from a severe form of Alzheimer's disease, and it is Sam who is trying to find her a place to live for the difficult days ahead...

Ivan is in heaven. At work in a bakery, his hands knead the white dough with abandon and will soon do the same to a woman’s plump breasts. Her hunger is as limitless as his, and she possesses his body and soul.

The quality of keyboardist/composer/bandleader Joe Zawinul's music remained unparalleled to the very end. This titan of the jazz world – whose innovative and genre-bending sensibilities gave rise to such visionary musical entities as Weather Report and the Zawinul Syndicate – took his final bow on September 11, 2007, at age 75 after a battle with cancer. Recorded in concert at a festival date in Lugano, Switzerland, on July 7, 2007, this aptly titled concert video is unwavering proof that Zawinul, like so many great artists, clearly saved some of his best work for last. This is a perfect companion piece to the 75 audio CD, which garnered a GRAMMY in 2010 for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

It is Autumn; at the end of a branch hangs a red leaf. A little black bird comes along to water it when suddenly, a squirrel nicks the bird's bright green watering can. The bird follows the cheeky thief and so begins an exciting chase through the forest.

Documentary about the youth riots in Zürich in 1980. Videoladen, Zürich 1980.

The film is about a Swiss filmmaker (S.) who is working on a documentary film on the theme of loneliness in New York. It mixes documentary and fiction in an entertaining way, showing all the flourishing industry that is aimed at lonely people, the numerous organizations that offer their services for singles and those seeking partners. S. explores it all with journalist thoroughness. Initially distanced, but as time goes by he finds himself more and more involved personally. He cannot get a woman, he saw on the flight to New York, out of his mind. All that he knows is her name, Michéle, and that she studies music in Boston. His telephone quest does not bring anything and he decides to go to Boston. There he visits all the music schools and puts up posters in the streets. Finally Michéle gets in touch. S. falls in love. The film story meets finally his personal situation. Distance is no longer possible.

Film director Boris Lehman returns to Lausanne, where he was born on 3 March 1944, at the end of the war.

The fight between an elderly man and a mosquito. How far a decent citizen in our civilization is willing to go to kill a small insect.

After the death of her grandmother, filmmaker Juliana Fanjul has to return to Mexico City, where she realizes how unfair is the relationship between housemaids and their employees.

In this intimate stage performance from 2011, Tanita Tikaram performs 13 of her songs in Basel, Switzerland: Cathedral Song, Wonderful Shadow, Little Sister Leaving Town, All Things to You, Good Tradition, Poor Cow, Valentine Heart, I Might Be Crying, Make the Day, Twist in My Sobriety, Dust on My Shoes, One Kiss, and As I Love You.

Eric is in love with Kevin but he can't talk to him. His classmates make fun of him and Eric feels very lonely. He decides to take revenge...

Former telenovela star Pippa is in her forties and struggling to reestablish herself as an actress. Chasing after her dreams, she hurries from one audition to another, constantly being confronted with the role of the mother. After an unexpected meeting with her estranged daughter Luna, the role Pippa has been denying suddenly becomes her reality.

A condom salesman arrives at the hotel “Der Wilde Mann.” He wants to install a vending machine there. The owner refuses. During the night, he discovers that the hotel owner is a filmmaker who shoots strange movies in his hotel.