Scissere

Zurich-born Hugo Koblet was the first international cycling star of the post-war period. He was a stylist on the bicycle and in life, and a huge heartthrob. Koblet had a meteoric rise and won the Giro d'Italia in 1950. Once he had reached the zenith of his career, Koblet was put under pressure by overly ambitious officials and ended up ruining his health with drugs. In 1954, he married a well-known model and they became a celebrity dream couple. After his athletic career ended, Koblet began to lose his footing. Threatened by bankruptcy, he crashed his Alfa into a tree.

Satellite dish salesman Gus experiences some life-altering changes when he meets performance artist Lucy in this visually poetic fantasy. After Lucy vanishes, leaving a puzzling note, Gus goes on a quest for the mysterious woman. Moving from his meticulous life in a technologically advanced world into the spontaneity of nature, Gus learns some important lessons and begins to trust his own instincts.

Two women and a man suffering from severe depression are accompanied by a camera for a year and a half. The acute phase of their depression is the starting point for this filmed account. How do they cope with their illness and their stay in hospital? How does their professional and family situation evolve after this major crisis? When do they feel cured again?

Shake the Devil Off

Josh's Trees

Debra Milke

Both aspire to remain true to themselves and to build their lives freely. This bold vision in the 1950s is that of Katharina von Arx and Freddy Drilhon, when they meet during a trip to Polynesia. A passionate love unites them; she becomes famous as a reporter and illustrator, and he as a photographer. When the couple settled with their daughter in Romainmôtier to turn the ruined priory into their new home, their relationship was put to the test. While Katharina put all her energy into restoring the impressive building, Freddy began to feel depressed in this remote village in the canton of Vaud. A serious crisis erupted between the two and they broke up. Freddy left Katharina to start a new life on the south coast of England—but the love that united them did not fade.

Mirr

From August to October 1942, over 2250 Jews were deported from the internment camp of Rivesaltes to Auschwitz by way of Drancy. Among them were 110 children. Friedel Bohny-Reiter, a nurse with the Swiss Aid to Children, worked in this camp in the South of France. Like many others in the formerly unoccupied zone, it was run by the French. Once a military camp, it had been converted in 1941 into a transit camp regrouping Jewish, Gypsy and Spanish people living in the area or who had fled to the free zone as refugees. Thanks to the young nurse from Basel, many children were probably saved from certain death. The film follows the nurse on a visit to that still intact site as well as through the pages of the journal she wrote in those dark days, published by Editions Zoë, Geneva in 1993.

Ina, Amer & Elvis

Remue-ménage

Endlich Chef

Swiss artist Markus Raetz has a sixth sense for apprehending the extraordinary. His works are as astonishing as a magician's sleight of hand: they shake up visual habits and show things from a completely different perspective. To further surprise the viewer, this perceptive Swiss artist makes use of the most diverse techniques, materials and media. His installations and sculptures change their appearance according to their own movement or that of the viewer contemplating them. For example, a rabbit becomes a man in a hat, evoking Beuys, or a yes turns into a no. This document presents us with a highly personal view of the world and the man behind these exceptional works.

Switzerland still carries out special flights, where passengers, dressed in diapers and helmets, are chained to their seats for 40 hours at worst. They are accompanied by police officers and immigration officials. The passengers are flown to their native countries, where they haven't set foot in in up to twenty years, and where their lives might be in danger. Children, wives and work are left behind in Switzerland. Near Geneva, in Frambois prison, live 25 illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. They are offered an opportunity to say goodbye to their families and return to their native countries on a regular flight, escorted by plain-clothes police officers. If they refuse this offer, the special flight is arranged fast and unexpectedly. The stories behind the locked cells are truly heartbreaking.

Is cycling the key to happiness? Does being a cycle courier mean absolute freedom or just providing a simple service? CYCLIQUE plunges us into the bicycle delivery world in Lausanne and allows us to share in the lives of three couriers who are at a crossroads in their lives.

An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.

Max Frisch was the last big Swiss intellectual widely respected as a “voice” in its own right – a character hardly found today. The film retells Frisch’s story as a witness of the unfolding 20th century, wondering if such “voices” are needed at all, or if we could do without them.

The real place where the penguin congress takes place is also the most fictional place on this planet where you can stand on your own two legs. Here, even the animals can talk. This land of dreams and nightmares is called Antarctica. In this desert of ice surrounded by a stormy sea, a few dozen human beings also live. Using sophisticated instruments, they observe the worrying changes affecting our world: the hole in the ozone layer, climate change, and so on.

A behind-the-scenes look at the of how the Paris Opera is run under the direction of Stephane Lissner.

The incredible story of how the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man was discovered by a hunter in one of the most remote parts of the country. The dead man's detailed notes reveal that he actually committed suicide through self-imposed starvation only the summer before. Liechti's film is a stunning rapprochement of a fictional text, which itself is based upon a true event: a cinematic manifesto for life, challenged by the main character's radical renunciation of life itself.