Picture of Light

A documentary of an expedition to Churchill, Manitoba to film the Northern Lights.

Like Stone Lions in the Gateway into Night

Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.

Markus Raetz

Special Flight

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 Laundry Room

The key to the communal laundry room in the block of flats on the Rue de Genève 85 in Lausanne serves a much greater function than merely unlocking the door. This encounter between a symbol of typical Swiss mentality with a penchant for order and the tenants who have been housed here by the city’s social services department is not something to be taken for granted. Although the laundry room is normally located in the cellar, the tenants in this building share a tiny laundry room off the entrance hall because the cellar is reserved for prostitution. To maintain order and cleanliness, the landlord hires Claudina, a new “laundry woman”.

Balifilm

Balifilm was originally commissioned as a stage performance, created from diary images and sounds collected in 1990 and 1992 by Peter Mettler on the island of Bali. The soundtrack is a live recording of eight Gamelan musicians playing the bronze and wooden instruments of Indonesia during the projection of the film. balifilm is a personal, lyrical observation and expression of the creative pulse of an extraordinary culture.

Max Frisch, Citoyen

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.

Exit: The Right to Die

Switzerland is presently the only country in the world where suicide assistance is legal. Exit: The Right to Die profiles that nation's EXIT organization, which for over twenty years has provided volunteers who counsel and accompany the terminally-ill and severely handicapped towards a death of their choice.

Remue-ménage

The Congress of Penguins

Hugo Koblet - The Charming Cyclist

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.

Magic Matterhorn

A documentary about entertainment and home, filmed in Switzerland and California.

Gyrischachen - von Sünden, Sofas und Cervelats

A high-rise apartment built in the 1960s provides housing for 2500 people from 42 nations. Separated from the city by a river and bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, everyone attempts to live and survive in their own way. Foreigners who have a go at being Swiss, and Swiss who observe with scepticism. They meet in the corner shop run by an Iraqi living in exile, send their kids to a children’s club managed by a missionary, and old drinking mates meet regularly over a beer in the neighbourhood’s only bar. Despite all the differences, they are rather proud of the fact that they come from here.

Daniel Schmid: Le Chat Qui Pense

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.

Queen of Condoms

Ceschi and Stamm's documentary tells the incredible story of Monika Krause, a former East German citizen, who became Fidel Castro's Sexual Education Minister. After 20 years in Cuba, Krause set the Cuban sexual revolution in motion: in favor of a woman's right to sexual fulfillment and legal abortion, and against exclusion of homosexuals, she acquired the title "Queen of Condoms". A film about potent female agitators, staunch macho men and Caribbean love lives.

Der Imker

A documentary about Ibrahim Gezer, who escaped from war in Kurdistan to Switzerland. All is lost, except his love for beekeeping.