Discoveries from Switzerland World Cinema

Dozens of migrants climb onto an overcrowded truck. Their goal: to escape to Europe. When they arrive after an exhausting journey, another brutal reality awaits them: the European treatment of refugees.

For the past two decades Didi Contractor has been passionately implementing her architectural visions in North West of India, the Kangra Valley, at the foot hills of the Himalayas combining rural traditions with modern requirements. This poetic documentary introduces us to her creations - houses built from clay, bamboo, slate and river stone, constructed in tribute to their natural surroundings. At the age of 86, Didi Contractor pursues her vision working day and night - dreaming her designs then designing her dreams. She sketches roughly, then proportions with pinpoint accuracy, the blueprints for economically and ecologically sustainability.

Swiss graffiti crew KCBR drops a video to company their book release.

Love, war, and the myriad state of humanity and the world condensed into a visual summation that's a treat for the eyes.

Hubert, who is having fun with his employee Jenny and doesn't notice that - along with other valuables that are rapidly losing value in comparison - his suit is stolen. How to get home? How to explain to his wife that he would be performing in an Adam costume if he actually made it home without being arrested as an exhibitionist?

Hausarrest tells the story of Max, who was sentenced to house arrest for six months. An ankle monitor called Percy assists him during his arrest. But one day he realizes with horror how far Percy goes in its function.

An initiative from Pompidou Center, filmed by Jean Marie Straub.

While on vacation, a man takes an excursion to an unfamiliar neighbouring country. There, in the alpine confinement, he finds an ideal echo for the rage he had brought with him: rage towards the mountains, civilisation and mentality. At times, a sense of glee even surfaces with this unbridled rage. He needs these forays into the mountains. He uses his anger to get to the bottom of his discomfort.

In Bern, a confluence of events forces Max, a radio commentator, to face the personal sense of frustration he feels in politics, his job and his relationship. A veteran of the ’68 generation, he confronts the demise of that utopian dream, breaking the bonds of his dreary existence during one night.

Géraldine Fasnacht is a wingsuit pilote that nurtures a dream since she learned to fly, the dream to be the first wingsuit pilote to jump from the top of the Matterhorn. Technological and technical advances have enabled her, along with her friend Julien Meyer, to achieve this world first on June 7, 2014 .

Matthias is the illegitimate son of a factory worker. He lives as an indentured child labourer at his dictatorial aunt’s remote guesthouse. The only thing he knows in life are hard work and hard punches. After a sudden death, the unhappy boy finds the opportunity to make his way to his mother. In collaboration with SRF, Cinémathèque suisse, Memoriav and Praesens Film, ZFF once again presents a freshly restored version of a Swiss cinema classic. This 1941 literary adaptation is an almost forgotten jewel of Swiss film history that offers an impressive insight into Eastern Switzerland’s embroidery industry. Born in 1930, a later chapter of the main actor Röbi Rapp’s life was portrayed in the multi-award winning docufiction DER KREIS.

Documentary about the helpers on the world's highest mountain.

A bicycle ride through the streets of Shanghai between spring and summer 1984, from the suburbs to the center of the city.

Trying desperately to forget his roots, Henry is drawn back into the fray with his father when finances get the better of him. Returning with him to sell the family farm, his fiance soon discovers disturbing secrets about his past. A childhood sweetheart, a subborn father thick with Swiss traditions, and a desperate lawyer who’ll do anything for money force Henry to decide between protecting his father or turning his back on him.

In the first winter to show the undeniable effects of global warming, Absinthe Films has explored the effects of a changing planet. For those who live to snowboard, these changes can be perceived as impossible challenges or creative opportunities. Absinthe reconfirms it's ability to find the best conditions when the rest have given up or resigned themselves to the park. Following fifteen individuals through their interpretation of this winter, Absinthe forges another unforgettable snowboard film with it's newest release. Optimistic?

On a train journey forward the sudden realization hits. It's the wrong train.

Without the forest, most roads would be impassable and many villages would be uninhabitable. Two thirds of the Graubünden Forest is protected forest. A healthy forest is the foundation of our existence. But how is the Graubünden Forest doing? Some areas will be visited. Part of this forest is in catastrophic conditions.

With formal precision, Riccardo Giacconi proposes a curious and surprising dialogue which articulates the old tradition of puppetry with robotics and artificial intelligence: two totally different forms of research and creation that nevertheless share a passion for the movement of anthropomorphic bodies and their endless possibilities.

A body cam moves through different rooms, shifting between various roles from one space to another: from a police officer patrolling a red-light district in Geneva, to an imaginary war theater, to a private living room, and to the observation of a virtual reality experiment on violence in a psychology laboratory.

Documentary film.

In the early 1990s, Gotthard, the most internationally renowned Swiss rock band, was born. In 2010, while their success was on the rise, singer and Harley fan Steve Lee was struck down on a Nevada highway. Overcoming all setbacks, the band remained united and conquered the rock world.

In an insect food farm, millions of crickets are being bred, frozen, packaged, and fried. The ordinary, everyday process in the farm is a one-time catastrophe for the crickets and usually ends with their certain death. Nevertheless, one cricket survives and escapes.

An omnibus film made under the creative supervision of Alice Diop, with the help of Ticino Film Commission and RSI.

The tentants of a block of low rental housing lead their daily lives without ever meeting each other. A succession of strange events make them suspicious. They discover that a crow is responsible. They decide to catch it. After its disappearance they will be able to meet and talk together.

Max, a 23-year-young man, works in his father's fish shop. In this family business, the days are long and repeat themselves. The arrival of Zoe, an enthusiastic and full of life trainee, disturbs the routine of Max and leads him to rethink his future with seemed to him to be a foregone conclusion.

Documentary about sports and good manners and the interrelationship of both.

Every year, a small, pugnacious Serbian village holds the Rakijada - a schnapps olympiad. This red thread allows us examine the Serbian soul from a new point of view, while never losing sight of the typical humour of the Balkans.

It's director Oberholzer's sixtieth birthday. His wife and daughter Anna receive the guests who are invited to the feast, with a dish of pike as the main course. But suddenly, the celebration turns sour at the appearance of an unexpected guest - namely Oberholzer's brother Alois, the black sheep of the family, who disappeared years ago. As it turns out, Alois has since changed his name to "Obolski" and become ringmaster of a major circus. Him and his wife Iduna quickly threaten the morals and standards of the bourgeois party, and they proceed to turn the boring proceedings into a turbulent circus show. Fortunately, after much confusion, the story ends happily - altough the pike has burned black in the oven!

It’s a black-and-white record of European cities in the dark (2-5am), from Basle to Belfast. Quiet, and meditative, what emerges most strongly is an eerie sense of city landscapes as deserted film sets, in which the desolate architecture overwhelms any sense of reality. The only reassurance that we are not in some endless machine-Metropolis is the shadow of daytime activity: a juggernaut plunging through a darkened village, a plague of small birds in the predawn light. The whole thing is underscored by a beautiful ‘composed’ soundtrack, from quietly humming streetlights to reggae and the rumble of armoured cars in Belfast. A strange and remarkable combination of dream, documentary and science-fiction.

In a fascinating, spell-binding landscape, an exchange of memories takes place between witnesses still alive and those who, through their writings and music, long ago fashioned a memorial to the largest ever Jewish cosmos - right there in the heart of Europe.

A multi-faceted portrait of a motley group of people from ex-Yugoslavia who emigrated to Switzerland over the last 40 years. Much as they might praise and appreciate the advantages of living in Switzerland, they have kept their traditions of old and live a life of yearning and nostalgia in their own separate canton, the “Canton of Yugoslavia”.

Part of FIFF's section "Une Histoire de Fribourg : Terre de hockey sur glace"

On Christmas Eve, a troupe re-enacts the classic French play Santa Claus is a Stinker. On stage and backstage, the actors reveal their wounds and memories, mixing satire and confidences. Moving back and forth between fiction and reality, the play denounces the hypocrisy of the festive season, and questions the meaning of solidarity, family and theater itself.

After noticing that an A.I. generative model modifies her self-portraits with unattainable and unsolicited beauty standards, E. starts a conversation with DonnerBot, a chatbot that claims to provide a real solution to solitude. DonnerBot introduces her to a self-help manual, which transports E. into a world rejecting the ugly, the imperfect, and perhaps thus everything that makes us humans.

In this multifaceted and tender portrait, the filmmaker documents the everyday life of her 80-year-old mother. In addition to disputes with her landlords, meditative dance circles, and violin playing, she also talks about what led her to where she is now.

Thirty-eight-year-old Boris is an unemployed film buff at the end of his unemployment benefits. Benoît, thirty-six, is an entrepreneur, a champion of active life, who decides to film his childhood friend for twelve months.

Many Tamil refugees, even after years in Switzerland, still have only temporary residence permits. Their lives are worn down by the constant fight for permits and work, authorization to travel and education. Wanakam tells the story of Nixsan, put in a home for children, who has stopped talking since he fled from Sri Lanka; of Sasi, who is consumed with homesickness; of Mena, on her difficult path to independence and of Aiya, who escapes his loneliness with sad songs. The film illustrates how family structures are shattered by government-ordered isolation and also raises questions concerning the humaneness of integration policies.

The beginning is a farewell. Like a phantom, the protagonist roams her city. A supermarket, the museum, a bar. All tangible places or just memories of something that was? This world or the hereafter? In parallel, Jo feeds her leeches – Hirudo medicinalis – and tries to accept a decision.

Director Fabian Biasio is stuck in a dilemma: as an urban cyclist, he has a latent hatred of cars. He compensates for his vulnerability with a generous interpretation of the traffic rules. But as soon as he sits behind the wheel of a car, he becomes a driver with heart and soul. He asks himself where this desire comes from and discovers worlds previously hidden from him.

A summer walk through Zurich ends in a police control. Prison ruins are turned into parks, old buildings give way to new ones. On the first of May, rubber bullets are fired. A person goes blind.

Lemon and Blueberry fall in love. Wearing their wigs, they go to the mountains, but the present is soon derailed by memories of events that haven’t happened yet…

"The Sigrid Undset Club" is a venue run by individuals who have dealt with discrimination. At the Sigrid Undset Club, musical and artistic performances are offered, and informational material about the federal law on equality introduced in 1996, yet still little known, is made available. Four women experiencing discrimination in the workplace, through meetings at the Sigrid Undset Club, find the information and courage to fight and resolve their problems...