A Different History

The Baselstrasse is a street in Lucerne. People call it "Rue de Blamage" – it's a noisy street tucked into a narrow space between a hill and a train track. The people who live here don't usually mingle with the rich and famous, but even the roughest haunt can be a home to those who live and work there – and Baselstrasse's two kilometers of asphalt are no different.

A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

In the Bernese Alps, the Agassizhorn peak memorialises Louis Agassiz – a controversial 19th-century scientist, who not only named the mountain after himself, but who claimed he had discovered the Ice Age and went on to become one of the century's most virulent, most influential racists.

A tour of the mountains, valleys and cities of this beautiful country. Visit Neuchatel, then shop in elegant Lausanne. The dungeon of the Chateau de Chillon, the city of Geneva and Zermatt's magnificent Matterhorn.

Walter Mittelholzer - Eine Schweizer Pioniergeschichte

In 1966, John Harlin II died while attempting Europe's most difficult climb, the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland. 40 years later, his son John Harlin III, an expert mountaineer and the editor of the American Alpine Journal, returns to attempt the same climb.

At the end of the 70s, punk promised rebellion and self-empowerment, also for women in the scene. They fought for their place on stage among the dominant punk top dogs, battling against social norms and long-outdated female role models. This is their story.

Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?

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.

The traditional healers in the Swiss and French mountains.

Das katholische Korsett – oder der mühevolle Weg zum Frauenstimmrecht

An intimate portrait of Matthew Shepard, the gay young man murdered in one of the most notorious hate crimes in U.S. history. Framed through a personal lens, it's the story of loss, love, and courage in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

The story of the road to women's suffrage in Sweden featuring interviews with relatives of the main characters.

Die Affäre Meili

A momentous act of self sacrifice is caught on camera - Emily Davison is trampled by the King's horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby.

A study of the psychology of a champion ski-flyer, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.

Through the testimonies of some Italian women, the documentary evokes the day of 2 June 1946, when they were called upon to cast their vote for the first time. The battles conducted by Italian women in the years leading up to 1946 to demand recognition of the right to vote. The approval of the right to vote for women by the Italian Parliament on 1 February 1945, at the proposal of the Italian Communist Party Secretary Palmiro Togliatti and statesman and founder of the Christian Democratic Party De Gasperi. The role of the first 21 women elected to the Constituent Assembly on 2 June 1946, and their contribution to the writing of the Italian Constitution.

"Jolly Roger" could mean Roger Schawinski. But by definition, a "Jolly Roger" is the classic black pirate flag with skull and crossbones. This documentary tells the unvarnished story of the Swiss radio pirates who emerged in the 1970s. The focus is on Radio 24 in its wild years, when Schawinski's team broadcast from Italy, with the strongest FM station in the world at the time, straight down from Pizzo Groppera, 130 kilometers all the way to the Zurich area. Supported by numerous original documents from private filmmakers and from the SRG archives, the viewer relives the absurd radio war between David and Goliath that lasted almost four years, 24 years after this war between the radio pirates and the state power began on November 13, 1979. The many known and unknown fighters, who rallied behind their Radio Winkelried Schawinski in 1979 to help usher Switzerland into a new media age, remember the good and bad times, the demonstrations and the numerous threatened and actual closures.

The Untold Story of the Suffragists of Newfoundland (1999) is a docu-drama celebrating the thirty year struggle by the women of Newfoundland to win the right to vote.

Wolves divide and fascinate us. 150 years after they were driven to extinction in Central Europe, they are returning slowly but inexorably. Are they dangerous to humans? Is it possible to coexist? Using Switzerland as a point of departure, where wolves have returned in the very recent past, this documentary sheds light on the wolf situation in Austria, eastern Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, and even Minnesota, where freely roaming packs of wolves are more common sight.