A native of Sennwald, Anna Göldi arrived in Glarus in 1765. For seventeen years, she worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, a physician. Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means. Göldi at first escaped arrest, but the authorities of the Canton of Glarus advertised a reward for her capture in the Zürcher Zeitung on February 9, 1782. Göldi was arrested and under torture, admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. She withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced on June 18, 1782 to execution by decapitation. The charges were officially of "poisoning" rather than witchcraft, even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning.
Before an office complex is set to be demolished, it expresses one last wish: a love story. It centers around desire, security, and a melody that runs through the entire fabric of the building. So when darkness descends and everything falls silent, the routine lives of those within its walls sparkle like stars, paving the way for intimate chance encounters and absurd humor to unfold. A nocturnal kaleidoscope of longing, loneliness and freedom.
A girl, Carola, whose vacation in Kenya takes an interesting turn when she becomes infatuated with a Masai. Carola decides to leave her boyfriend to stay with her lover. There, she has to adapt to the Masai's way of life and get used to their food which includes milk mixed with blood. She also has to face her husband's attitude towards women and what he expects from a wife. Nonetheless, Carola is welcomed warmly into the tribe she has chosen to join.
Hoping to become a great singer in Germany, a young dreamer named Ernst Schrämli finds himself drawn into underhand dealings. Determined to escape a suffocating environment that annihilates any kind of creative or artistic impetus, Ernst sells information about the Swiss army to a Nazi spy by the name of August Schmid, who charms and manipulates him. When Ernst’s crime is uncovered, he is sentenced to death for espionage and treason, becoming the first Swiss citizen to be executed.
The story of a German singer named Willie, who while working in Switzerland, falls in love with a Jewish composer named Robert, whose family is helping people to flee from the Nazis. Robert’s family is skeptical of Willie, thinking she could be a Nazi as she becomes famous for singing the song “Lili Marleen”.
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
Second chapter of a trilogy of short films about the emotions arising from the five stages of grief. Here, "Bargaining."
North Face tells the story of two German climbers Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser and their attempt to scale the deadly North Face of the Eiger.
A classical art professor and collector, who doubles as a professional assassin, is coerced out of retirement to avenge the murder of an old friend.
Without knowing it, Alfred and Julia live in a land of pure invention. It is the richest and most beautiful land in the world. From a height, this land looks like a piece of felt, from close up like a clean and tiny park. The footpaths are lined with benches and the streets with banks. Alfred and Julia have been married for 8 years, are childless, and live on the 16th floor of a new building. Thanks to their various crises, they have got to know each other somewhat better, but their most outstanding characteristic remains their mediocrity. On Friday, August 12th 1977, a mysterious epidemic breaks out in their country. The mass media ensure that the news is widely broadcast. The authorities order a ban on information, but those concerned break their imposed silence. On Sunday evening, it becomes known that the epidemic was nomore than a kind of "dress rehearsal" for a real emergency. Alfred and Julia continue to live in a land of pure invention - but now they are conscious of the fact.
Parvaneh is a young Afghan immigrant who recently arrived at a transit centre for asylum seekers in the Swiss Alps. The only things she has got to know yet are the rural area surrounding the centre and the centre itself.
During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?
Two lifelong friends bond whilst vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred has no plans to resume his musical career despite the urging of his loving daughter Lena, Mick is intent on finishing the screenplay for what may be his last important film for his muse Brenda. And where will inspiration lead their younger friend Jimmy, an actor grasping to make sense of his next performance?
An Italian immigrant tries to make a new life in Switzerland, taking on a series of increasingly menial jobs in order to do it. He attempts to fit into his new home and society but fails at every turn. Unable to go home again, will his tenacity and optimism be enough to live on?
A woman is torn between the love of her life, who's married to someone else, and her older husband.
In 1960, Martín and Marcos are forced by their difficult personal circumstances to travel to Switzerland in search of work, leaving their families in the Madrid of Franco's Spain. But they undertake more than a simple journey; they begin the road to a new life.
Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.
The demise of airline Swissair in 2001 was a huge blow to Switzerland's economy and to the country's morale. It was a sad day for Swiss history when the airline's fleet was grounded on 2 October 2001. "Grounding" is set during the last days of the doomed airline, and tells the story of manager Mario A. Corti's unhappy fate, the last, unlucky CEO at the traditional airline company, as well as of all those nameless people who lost almost everything in the maelstrom of Swissair's downfall: their job, home and their belief in Switzerland.
Heidi is an orphaned girl initially raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland. In order to get a job in Frankfurt, Dete brings 5-year-old Heidi to her grandfather, who has been at odds with the villagers for years and lives in seclusion on the alm. He at first resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl manages to penetrate his harsh exterior and subsequently has a delightful stay with him and her best friend, young Peter the goat-herd.
Fortuna, a 14-year-old Ethiopian girl, has had no news of her parents since they crossed the Mediterranean Sea. Together with other refugees, she is given shelter for the winter in a Swiss catholic monastery. While she waits for her fate to be decided by the Swiss authorities, Fortuna finds out she is pregnant. The choice she will have to make and the arrival of the refugees will give rise to concern within the religious community and will challenge their concept of Christian charity.