Unwanted Witness

The shooting of this peasant chronicle in the Gruyère region of Switzerland lasted a whole year, from July 1989 to July 1990.

This film deals with the issue of mandatory military service in Switzerland. For four months, from February to May 1990, filmmaker Jacqueline Veuve and her team filmed a platoon engaged in basic training at Colombier, Switzerland.

Armand Schulthess - J'ai le téléphone

Life in Progress

Meerdolen

Ho und Überall

Since the conflict in Darfur spread to the eastern border regions of Chad in 2005, some 13,000 people fled from this region to the refugee camp near the village of Gouroukoun. For them, the war is never far off. Many of these traumatised refugees have lived here for years, with little food, no work and no prospect of returning home. Zuchuat took his camera to the camp and captured their uncertain existence without providing any comment. He captures the refugees' arduous daily life in long shots, often from a single angle. They all have their own stories of how they ended up here, how they saw their families and fellow-villagers perish and no longer have any work, cattle or land. Another striking story is told by a child that uses a drawing to explain how he was chased away from his native village. Little girls sing a battle song while waiting for what comes next in this prison without bars.

Kick That Habit is a 1989 film by PETER LIECHTI, an audio-visual portrait of his native country, eastern Switzerland. The film collects samples from the land-and-soundscape, underscoring in the process the oft-ignored industrial underpinning of our latter-day culture. Also native to eastern Switzerland is VOICE CRACK, the everyday household electronics duo of NORBERT MOSLANG and ANDY GUHL, whose musical workings are explored as part of Liechti s vision. Whether clicking quietly and rhythmically or humming and shrieking at ear-splitting volume, their recycled electronics produce innovative sounds and provide an appropriate accompaniment in this cinematic search for the detritus of our culture, the lost and destroyed remains of the last century of progress.

Anoosh and Arash are at the center of Tehran’s underground techno scene. Tired of hiding from the police and their stagnating career, they organize one last manic techno rave under dangerous circumstances in the desert. Back in Tehran they try their luck selling their illegally printed music album without permission. When Anoosh is arrested, there seems to be no hope left. But then they receive a phone call from the biggest techno festival in the world. Once landed in Switzerland, the haze of the instant euphoria evaporates quickly when the seriousness of the situation starts to dawn on them.

In May of 1982 Julio Cortázar, the Argentinean writer and his companion in life, Carol Dunlop set out in their VW bus on a journey along the highway from Paris to Marseille that, for each of them, was to be their final one. Twenty-five years later, Océane Madelaine and Jocelyn Bonnerave set out to undertake the journey again.

This 140-minute documentary takes a close look at the story and historical context of a young Swiss man who was beheaded during WW II for supposedly wanting to kill Hitler. The man's family cannot help clarify the issue since they say he had been pro-Nazi earlier. Other injustices or puzzling omissions come to the fore, such as a German who was against Hitler, survived torture by the SS, and then was not given any state aid when peace was restored. Another sequence shows an extensive U.S. archive of materials that identifies many Nazis and their activities -- but is not available to anyone trying to track down former war criminals. Like other films of this type, the documentary helps to fill in facts about WW II that are little-known, or slow in coming out.

Into Great Silence (German: Die Große Stille) is a documentary film directed by Philip Gröning that was first released in 2005. It is 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.

Documentary about Swiss grocery store pioneer Gottlieb Duttweiler

Memoirs of the Italian Opera by the singers and musicians of the Casa Verdi, Milan, the world’s first nursing home for retired opera singers, founded by composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1896. This documentary, which has achieved cult-like status among opera and music lovers, features former singers who reminisce about their careers and their past operatic roles.

In Bern, Madame Mercedes has been working for 35 years in her car as a prostitute. An intimate and subtle portrait about ageing as a prostitute, a documentary about a vanishing chapter of habits in Switzerland.

When director Daniel Schmid grew up, his parents ran a hotel in the Alps, and this singular setting was to influence his film. Rather by coincidence he came to Berlin in the early 1960s and became part of the new German wave. Schmid worked with, among others, Wenders and Fassbinder, for example as an actor in Wender’s The American Friend. He met Ingrid Caven, who was to play a diva in several of his films. This is a documentation of a part of modern European film history and a good analysis of artistry and how it corresponds to the individual behind the camera. A wealth of archival footage brings us close to many directors and actors in Schmid’s circle. If you’ve never seen a Daniel Schmid film, you are sure to want to after watching this portrait of his life.

Anders als die Väter

Al Quds - The Workshop

Album de famille

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.