Documentaries

«Let's make a documentary together,» Chrigu says. «At some point, I'll get out of it». The documentary tells the story of a young man who had big plans for his life. After an advanced stage tumor is discovered in him at the age of 24, he fights for his life. Jan Gassmann accompanies him with his camera. The result is not a film about death, but rather about life. Powerful and without false sentimentality as well as deeply touching authenticity.

"Joan Baez - I Am a Noise" is neither a conventional biopic nor a traditional concert film but an intimate portrait of the legendary folk singer and activist. The film jumps between times, following Joan Baez on her final tour and delving deep into her extraordinary archive.

A documentary portrait chronicling the incredible life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor who became America's most famous sex therapist. As her 90th birthday approaches, Dr. Ruth revisits her painful past and her career at the forefront of the sexual revolution.

This documentary from director Asif Kapadia highlights one of the most celebrated and controversial soccer players in the world. The charismatic Argentine was worshiped on and off the pitch and led Napoli to its first league title. This wild and unforgettable story will recount the miracles he performed on the field as darker days loomed ahead.

Paolo Conte is one of the greatest exponents of provincial culture in the world. His visual songs form an imaginary atlas of the soul, a compendium of sound and poetry. Often they are like short films, capable of taking on a life of their own, for Conte carries you away and enchants you with his variety show. Paolo Conte, Via con me tells the almost fifty-year-long story of an eclectic figure. An imaginary journey, an interweaving of poetry and music through the songs, concerts, friends and reflections of the singer. Verdelli has drawn on the immense stock of material in Conte’s personal archives, combining it with footage shot for the purpose: interviews, films of international tours and other occasions in a unique career. Through these images, the docufilm ventures into the labyrinth of his songs, including the ones he has written for a wide range of performers (Adriano Celentano, Enzo Jannacci, Jane Birkin, Caterina Caselli, Bruno Lauzi), and that of his passions (jazz, puzzles, painting, law, the movies) in a continual exploration of the familiar and the unfamiliar, of the stories, verses and songs of that extraordinary elsewhere which is the world of Paolo Conte.

With her worldwide success “Fear of Flying”, the New Yorker Erica Jong inspired the sexual liberation of women. She dared to set out for herself and demanded an encounter on equal terms. She wanted to change the world and still wants to today. With her own story, with her humour and with trust in the power of words.

The first feature documentary about the legendary pantomime artist Marcel Marceau. He inspires several generations of artists, among them his own grandson and family, who cast a new light on his life's work.

This documentary takes a multi-layered approach to Saint Nicholas of Flüe. Rare witness accounts and quotations from his transmitted mystical texts, in particular the vision of the tower and the fountain, paint a portrait of a multifaceted and historically significant personality. Restored version.

This film is no classic author’s portrait, but rather a documentary that through fiction brings Martin Suter’s novels to life and also brings us another step closer to the creator behind them too. «Most often, imagination says more than reality.» Suter weaves from story to story – stories that have been beautifully, cinematographically and impactfully captured, illuminating both his characters and their secrets, and above all his unique cosmos (so near and yet so far) – a world of opposites shaped by the search for stories. This film reveals everything – except the truth.

Zilla Leutenegger is a successful Swiss artist. Filmmaker Iwan Schumacher accompanied her as she prepared for a major exhibition at the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur and focuses on the creation of three artworks: Two Pianos from the piano cemetery, a endless hallway and a Silverback called ZillaGorilla. These works are jumping-off points for following a few trajectories in Leutenegger’s life and work. A very contemporary picture emerges of life as a woman and as an artist today.

Where does one feel at home? In Stadtallendorf, a German city with a complex history of both excluding and integrating foreigners, genial teacher Dieter Bachmann offers his pupils the key to at least feeling as if they are at home. Aged between twelve and fourteen, these pupils come from twelve different nations; some have not quite mastered the German language. On the brink of retirement, Bachmann is eager to inspire these citizens-in-the-making with a sense of curiosity for a wide range of crafts, subjects, cultures and opinions. Watching this absorbing, sensitive documentary, one is overwhelmed with the realisation that, if only all children were blessed with such emotionally intelligent, ever-patient educators, conflict would be mitigated via discussion and John Lennon’s “Imagine” could be our reality. Those who, like filmmaker Maria Speth and her cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider, are able to recognise and highlight so beautifully not only the importance of education but also what a quietly spectacular process it can be, are heroes in their own right, too.

Endo Anaconda meets Albert Anker where the artist comes closer than anywhere else – in the painter's studio in the village of Ins, one of the very few artist's studios from the 19th century that have been conserved in their original condition. In this space with countless “exhibits” from floor to ceiling, you can explore right down to the farthest corners what Anker loved, admired, longed for, what made him aware of transience and death and what he wanted to have before his eyes at all times.

What are skinheads? A journey across Europe, the USA and Canada shows a picture of the current skinhead scene and its history: from the beginnings of the subculture, which grew out of a passion for ska and reggae music, the emergence of the term, which was coined by black Jamaicans, to the rise of the far-right scene. Fascinating portrait of an extremely divided and discredited movement.

Alice Schwarzer has always been a polarizing force. As a well-known television personality, she has divided couples on the sofa in German-speaking countries and encouraged women to emancipate themselves. The film shows a side of Schwarzer that goes beyond the influential feminist and journalist we know from her autobiography.

A luthier is obsessed with the idea of crafting a violin, the sound of which is so exceptional that it will thrill the musician who plays it and caress the souls of those who hear it. This will require a special type of wood, cut from a hallowed tree that is only found in a Balkan forest. A musical quest that is as thrilling as a high-stakes treasure hunt.

The documentary penetrates deep into the intimate therapeutic journeys of a rare breed of men dedicated to inner growth, self-enquiry and mutual support. Witness profoundly personal talking head interviews and join director Hyde and some of the group members on a powerfully emotive pilgrimage to the First World War battlefields of the Somme where silence is often louder than words. Funny, tragic, poignant and above all deeply honest, each and every one of the participants is unguarded, raw and open in a way you may never have seen before. With men chosen at random from Hyde’s 25 year group practice, the film explores universal themes such as sex, abuse, relationships and what it means to be a (hu)man in 21st century culture as the members strive to be the best versions of themselves, despite the prevailing sexist view of masculinity that still maintains men should be strong, silent and hide their vulnerability.

This captivating exploration of Alvar Aalto, the defining figure in Scandic design and one of Europe's greatest modern architects, focuses on his remarkable and loving partnership with wife, Aino. Theirs was a profoundly humanist vision that put people at the centre of design, and ranged from work in furniture design through to huge architectural projects. They mixed with, and influenced, major figures of modernist art and design including Le Corbusier, Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Come on a cinematic tour of their iconic buildings all over the world, from a library in Russia, a student dormitory at MIT, an art collector's private house near Paris, to a pavilion in Venice. Narrated by experts in the field and featuring never before seen archive footage, Aalto tells the love story of an extraordinary couple with a great passion for human scale architecture.

A former resistance fighter who is elected president of Uruguay and donates almost 90 percent of his salary to social projects: Pepe Mujica, one of Latin America's most charismatic personalities, has become known as "the poorest president in the world". He has always remained true to his ideals, having spent many years in prison for political reasons. His modest lifestyle - he lives in a small finca instead of a government palace - and his unconventional appearance underpin his credibility with young and old. Pepe Mujica represents his concerns with humour, intellect and passion, and his political commitment to a more just society attracts international attention and encouragement. Filmmaker Heidi Specogna and her cameraman Rainer Hoffmann often visited Pepe Mujica and his wife Lucía Topolansky and accompanied them with their cameras. This is how the portrait of an extraordinary person was created, who, at almost 80 years of age, has retained his courage, his wit, his humanity and his strong hope for change. "Pepe Mujica - el presidente" is an optimistic and moving film that inspires courage.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry transforms Jacques Dubochet’s life. Passing from the shadows to the light, he is solicited from all sides. What can he do with this voice, which is now being heard by everyone? How to define the struggles to be fought? How to become a “Nobel Citizen”, with the objective of assuming responsibility as a researcher and member of the human community? A speech by Greta Thunberg turns everything upside down.

The film tells of the radical life-search by the Swiss writer Paul Nizon, born 1929 in Bern, Switzerland, who became what “he was meant to be” in Paris. Now 90-year-old, Paul Nizon grants insights into his life and work in a self-ironic, direct manner. The intimate portrait of a great literary outsider emerges, for whom the risk of life and the risk of writing merge into one and the same work of art.

The filmmaker explores the life and work of the Austrian novelist, playwright and political activist, Peter Handke. The titles of his books sound like the tunes in a jukebox: Offending the Audience and Other Spoken Plays, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick or A Sorrow Beyond Dreams. In the 1960s, he was the definition of a “pop star” author. Yet as soon as he started making the bestseller lists, he turned his back on stardom and went travelling, taking his readers along with him, dragging them into the rhythm and precision of his language and into his own examination of reality. As a young man, and still now, in his daily life, Peter Handke never stopped asking: “Where are we now?” and “How should we live?”

The Swiss artist Markus Raetz is an established figure in the international art world. For the film by Iwan Schumacher, the artist from Bern is for the first time giving a camera team an insight into his 40 years of work.

Director Sonia Kronlund accompanies the Afghan director, actor and screenwriter Salim Shaheen in her film Nothingwood. He is a well-known figure on the film scene in his home country, but hardly known abroad. About a hundred kilometers away from Kabul, Salim Shaheen comes to show some of his 110 films and to shoot the 111th in the process.

The 36-year-old Swiss artist Urs Fischer, who lives in New York, has been enjoying international fame for some years now. This documentary follows him during the preparation of his exclusive exhibition in an American museum and thus takes us into the daily life and work of an artist.

The 80-year-old psychiatrist and best-selling author Irvin D. Yalom is considered the most influential psychotherapist in the USA. He has sold millions of books worldwide. Critics describe him as inspiring, compelling and life-changing. His work emphasizes the value of relationships and focuses on how therapy works. The film "Yalom's Cure" offers more than a classic biography: Yalom takes the audience on an existential journey through the many layers of the human psyche. In the role of the tour guide, Yalom shares his insights and provides deep insights into his own soul life.

Just like a salmon, this writer traces the course of her life back to the source: she tells us her story, in an interplay of reflections involving her sentiments, her writings, her photos and her friends. Before everyone, she drove, smoked, learned German, freely loved unfaithful men, reflected on Switzerland and its demons during the war and stirred generations of women with her sensitivity and her fury to write, getting straight to the point while drawing material from her own existence without glossing it over.

Lea Tsemel, a Jewish-Israeli lawyer, defends Palestinians: from feminists to fundamentalists, from nonviolent demonstrators to armed militants. As far as most Israelis are concerned, she defends the indefensible. As far as Palestinians are concerned, she’s more than an attorney, she’s an ally. «Advocate» follows Tsemel in real time, including the trial of a 13-year-old boy — her youngest client to date.

Cuno Amiet lived from 1868-1961, yet seen today many of his pictures have a contemporary edge. Amiet was a Swiss pioneer of modern painting along with Ferdinand Hodler and Giovanni Giacometti. The film visits three highly individual Amiet collectors in Dallas, Geneva and Studen, near Biel. Surrounded by Amiet’s works they tell us what part these paintings play in their lives.

The film tells of the radical life-search by the Swiss writer Paul Nizon, born 1929 in Bern, Switzerland, who became what “he was meant to be” in Paris. Now 90-year-old, Paul Nizon grants insights into his life and work in a self-ironic, direct manner. The intimate portrait of a great literary outsider emerges, for whom the risk of life and the risk of writing merge into one and the same work of art.

CITIZENFOUR is a real life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s encounters with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

CITIZENFOUR is a real life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s encounters with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

This documentary is a poetic journey to the unique music of the Argentine maestro Eduardo Falú (1923 - 2013). At the same time it is a vivid portrait of this outstanding musician. Starting from his particular relationship with the landscapes of northwestern Argentina, with his beloved hometown Salta, with the vast plains of the Pampa, the enormous mountains of the Andes with their dramatic canyons, fertile valleys and deserted high plateaus, the film follows the manyfold stations of Falús life and career.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is arguably the world's most reknowned expert on the process of dying. With Kübler Ross' full collaboration, Haupt's film looks back on her life and career, from her earliest days as a triplet in 1920s Zurich, to her fame as an international lecturer and writer based in the US. Now in her twilight years, Kübler-Ross is bedbound in Arizona, and awaiting death herself. A truly fascinating film that enables us to re-evaluate our own emotions regarding life's greatest certainty, death. With the addition of archive film and interviews with Kübler-Ross' sisters and close colleagues, Haupt builds up a rich picture of a remarkable woman who has done so much to make death less of a taboo.

Gilles Caron, at the peak of a dazzling career as a photojournalist, suddenly disappeared in Cambodia in 1970. He was barely 30 years old. In the space of 6 years, he was one of the major witnesses of his time, covering for the greatest magazines the Six Day War, May 68, the North Irish conflict or the Vietnam War. When director Mariana Otero discovered Gilles Caron's work, a photograph caught her attention, echoing his own story, the disappearance of a loved one who left behind only images to be deciphered. She then plunges into the 100,000 shots of the photoreporter to give him back a presence and tell the story of his so singular gaze.

Vivian Maier's photos were seemingly destined for obscurity, lost among the clutter of the countless objects she'd collected throughout her life. Instead these images have shaken the world of street photography and irrevocably changed the life of the man who brought them to the public eye. This film brings to life the interesting turns and travails of the improbable saga of John Maloof's discovery of Vivian Maier, unravelling this mysterious tale through her documentary films, photographs, odd collections and personal accounts from the people that knew her. What started as a blog to show her work quickly became a viral sensation in the photography world. Photos destined for the trash heap now line gallery exhibitions, a forthcoming book and this documentary film.

One of the world’s greatest living painters, the German artist Gerhard Richter has spent over half a century experimenting with a tremendous range of techniques and ideas, addressing historical crises and mass media representation alongside explorations of chance procedures. Infamously media-shy, he agreed to appear on camera for the first time in 15 years for a 2007 short by filmmaker Corinna Belz called Gerhard Richter’s Window. Her follow-up, Gerhard Richter Painting, is exactly that: a thrilling document of Richter’s creative process, juxtaposed with intimate conversations (with his critics, his collaborators, and his American gallerist Marian Goodman) and rare archive material. From our fly-on-the-wall perspective, we watch the 79-year-old create a series of large-scale abstract canvasses, using fat brushes and a massive squeegee to apply (and then scrape off) layer after layer of brightly colored paint. This mesmerizing footage, of a highly charged process of creation and destruction, turns Belz’s portrait of an artist into a work of art itself.

Ken Bugul is a Senegalese writer who lives in Africa, where her soul is anchored. She has had an exceptional life. Silvia Voser’s film shows her as an iconic figure of the female condition and of relationships between Africa and the West. Ken Bugul is considered one of the most brilliant writers in Senegalese and French of these past decades. Over the years, thanks to her great command of the French language and the uncompromising care she takes with the wording of the meaning of Wolof vocabulary, her mother tongue, her novels have become absolute references in the realm of linguistic studies. "What you read in French in my novels is how we think and speak in Wolof in my village". Ken Bugul’s personal story is overshadowed by Africa’s turbulent history. She was born in 1947 in an isolated village in Senegal, at that time a French colony. Her father was 85 years old and her mother left them before Ken turned five. This was a fundamental event in Ken Bugul’s life. In spite of lacking a mother’s love, she was full of energy and a yearning for freedom, and she received an exceptional education for a village girl of that time. In 1971, she left for Europe to go to university and there she met people from the upper middle class and discovered new ideologies and liberties, modern art, drugs, alcohol, loneliness, incomprehension and disdain, and prostitution to relieve her need for affection. As she says in "The Abandoned Baobab": "For twenty years all I had learned was their thoughts and their emotions. I thought I’d have fun with them, but I ended up even more frustrated. I identified with them, but they didn’t identify with me." She came back to Senegal, a broken, lonely and penniless young woman. People thought she was crazy and she was rejected by her family and society. For two years, she slept in the streets of Dakar, hanging out with outcasts, beggars, prostitutes and artists. Dirty, hungry, almost naked, she started writing her first novel, "The Abandoned Baobab". Worn out, she decided to go back to her family. And there, in her mother’s village, she found refuge with the Serigne (marabout), a wise and much respected man. He took her as his 28th wife, enabling her to re-enter society, and he supported her in her desire to write and to be free. He died in 1981, a year before the publication of her first novel, "The Abandoned Baobab", which was an immediate success. Ken Bugul was invited to present her book all over the world. She met a doctor from Benin, married him and moved to that country, where she gave birth to their daughter Yasmina. Her husband passed away four years later. For the past thirty years, novel after novel, Ken Bugul has painted a picture of her life as a woman, of her loves, of the relationship between her continent and the West. "To write", she says, "is to dazzle the senses, and the senses are colourless." Silvia Voser leads us gently into the secret, tormented world of an artist whose writings show an understanding of the world that is rarely achieved.

Janis Joplin is one of the most revered and iconic rock & roll singers of all time, a tragic and misunderstood figure who thrilled millions of listeners and blazed new creative trails before her death in 1971 at age 27. With Janis: Little Girl Blue, Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil, West of Memphis) examines Joplin’s story in-depth for the first time on film, presenting an intimate and insightful portrait of a complicated, driven, often beleaguered artist.

Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.

The only thing more outrageous than the great artist Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs was his life. Born in a suburb of New York, he began to take highly aesthetic images of sexually excited men in his mid twenties. It is the era of Andy Warhol’s Factory and a new dawn of hedonistic sexuality. In MAPPLETHORPE: LOOK AT THE PICTURES, the well-known homosexual tells without shame about the passions that influenced his art. Intimate recollections by those who knew him cast additional, sometimes critical, light on the biography of an artist whose provocative subject matter begged the question as to where art ends and pornography begins. Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato receive unprecedented access to previously unpublished archive material and shine a new light on a key figure of 20th century photography.

A documentary portrait chronicling the incredible life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor who became America's most famous sex therapist. As her 90th birthday approaches, Dr. Ruth revisits her painful past and her career at the forefront of the sexual revolution.

Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock 'n' roller, Rodriguez. The film won Best Documentary at the 85th Academy Awards.

A three-year journey with actor Bruno Ganz. He plays various roles in various places, but he also plays Bruno Ganz – filming and directing friends. Again and again he works on the role of Dr. Faust, the figure who – speaking for us all – desperately wants to discover “what holds the world together at the core”. A thousand days of searching for one's own destiny, with despair as the only companion, and placing hope in the creative power of poetry.

To celebrate the centenary of Jorge Luis Borges' birth, Tristán Bauer has created a very stimulating film essay: Skilfully, respectfully and poetically, he mixes archive documents, conversations and photographs of the writer's life, which reflect Borges' political stance, his problems with the Perón regime and his international successes. Tristán Bauer does not limit himself to a historian's work, he subtly reconstructs the writer's world: infinite fountains of the strange library of Babel, numerous corridors, circles, mirrors, stairs and hexagons.

Croatia, January 1992. In the midst of the Yugoslav Wars, Chris, a young Swiss journalist is found dead in mysterious circumstances. He was wearing the uniform of an international mercenary group. Anja Kofmel was his cousin. As a little girl, she used to admire this handsome young man; now a grown-up woman, she decides to investigate his story, trying to understand what really was the involvement of Chris in the conflict

Fourteen-year-old Leonie is a successful teen influencer who lives on the outskirts of Berlin. Millions of followers are at her feet, and companies shower her with products. When Leonie’s parents recognise the enormous economic potential of their daughter’s online activities, they quickly take over her management. They want Leonie to have a better life than they had. But Leonie’s life dictated by brands and pressure to produce content has a shadow side that the adrenaline, fame and free sneakers can’t make up for. Award-winning documentary about dreams, illusions, and self-perception.

Margreet Honig, eighty-four years old, is an internationally sought-after Dutch singing teacher. She teaches all over Europe and works with world-famous singers. She has developed her very own way of working, which is a pleasant contrast to the usual music education, which is fixated on perfection and performance. Her approach is therefore highly topical, also in relation to social changes in the areas of education and pedagogy.

Invited by a mysterious friend, a film team sets out on a journey to encounter a Yenish Europe that stretches from dusty banlieus in France to the forests of Carinthia. Told by the voices of young and old Travellers, a kaleidoscopic panorama of their lives unfolds. Diverse people relate to each other, bound together by their love of freedom but also by deep wounds from the past.

"Warum syt dir so truurig", "Dr Ferdinand isch gstorbe" or "I han es Zündhölzli azündt"? Mani Matter has created numerous songs that have shaped generations and whose lyrics are still relevant today. The documentary is a touching and fascinating approach to the legendary Bernese dialect songwriter and depicts his life in the area of tension between his middle-class and artistic existence. Conversations with family and friends are enriched with original recordings by Mani Matter and interpretations by musicians such as Stephan Eicher, Kuno Lauener, Dodo Hug and Polo Hofer. For years, the film was considered the most successful Swiss documentary of all time.

Where do Swiss German dialects stand in this era of globalisation? When the railways came to Switzerland in the mid-19th century, the Swiss feared that standard German would supplant the native idioms. But the opposite has happened: not only has the dialect survived, it has lost none of its vitality. Following in the footsteps of a forgotten Bernese word, we travel to the stage, the mountain pastures and the cellars to meet people who are passionate about the dialect. With Franz Hohler, Big Zis, Pedro Lenz, Alwa Alibi, Cachita, Simone Felber, Nadia Zollinger, Markus Gasser and Christoph Landolt.

On the edge of the Sahara, in Burkina Faso, the village of Kamsé is being destroyed by the effects of creeping desertification. To ensure the village’s survival, the villagers decided to embark on the planning of a perimeter. Armed with shovels and pickaxes, they will build dikes, plant hedges and trees to protect the soil from wind, gully erosion and herds of animals that grass on what little pasture manages to grow. For "Le périmètre de Kamsé", Geneva-based director Olivier Zuchuat filmed the fight against desertification in a village in Burkina Faso - a fight that is mainly fought by women.

After years of mass tourism in the Alps, a rethinking is slowly taking place. Whether researchers, artists or philosophers: Many are trying to approach the nature of the mountains in new ways. They reflect the contrasting approaches at this critical time, when we need to redefine our learnt values and actively seek change. Director Dominique Margot paints a portrait of scientists, artists, and mountaineers exploring the Alps in novel ways. "Bergfahrt" takes viewers on a captivating journey to discover mythical giants that exert great attraction.

Black dust, shrill metallic noises, dark tunnels, muscular bodies – all that is the past. At the end of 2018, extraction of coal throughout Germany came to an end. That same year, the voices of the emerging climate protest movement Fridays for Future grew louder. Against the backdrop of these media and socio-political events, the film follows five miners on their tragic, humorous and heartwarming search for a new role in life.

Some thirty children aged between four and eight spend their days in the woods, come sun, rain or snow. This is where they learn to read, write and count. Above all, the children experience this environment and the cycles of nature to the full, and seek their role in the community. This documentary by Natalie Pfister plunges us into the world of a forest school over the course of a year, giving a voice to its young protagonists.

Soldier Ernst S. was one of 17 Swiss men executed by the army for treason during the Second World War. Ernst S. was more of a thief than a traitor. Unfortunately, he had no money to afford a lawyer, which cost him his life. The documentary, based on the book by Niklaus Meienberg, is told from the perspective of contemporary witnesses who met Ernst S. during his short life. The reconstruction of the case of Ernst S. fueled a controversy about collective guilt, double standards and the role of Switzerland in the war.

Endo Anaconda meets Albert Anker where the artist comes closer than anywhere else – in the painter's studio in the village of Ins, one of the very few artist's studios from the 19th century that have been conserved in their original condition. In this space with countless “exhibits” from floor to ceiling, you can explore right down to the farthest corners what Anker loved, admired, longed for, what made him aware of transience and death and what he wanted to have before his eyes at all times.

They are the world’s next CEOs: students of the Master's programme "Strategy and International Management" at the University of St. Gallen (HSG). Those who succeed here are practically already part of the future business elite – like Feifei, Sara, Tobias, Frederic and David. Over the course of seven years, the documentary accompanies the five young men and women, who come from very different countries, from their studies to the first years of their careers. They have different backgrounds, dreams and values. But they all have the same goal: professional success as quickly as possible. The five, who are disarmingly outspoken, are willing to make sacrifices, to subordinate their personal lives to professional advancement. They experience exhilarating triumphs as well as bitter defeats – and repeatedly question many things. Our economy is closely linked to politics, international corporations influence our consumption and our behavior. Decisions made by CEOs shape our society; they influence how we live, how we work and also which regions of the world benefit economically and which do not. Who makes it to the top? What values do these people represent? And are they aware of their social responsibility? Director Piet Baumgartner starts with these questions and delves deep into the world of CEOs and consultants. His documentary captivates with strong images, is excellently made, insightful and nuanced.

1924. Director and aviation pioneer Walter Mittelholzer takes us on a flight from Zurich to Teheran. A daring journey of 6,000 km and 40 hours of flying, interspersed with numerous stopovers. The film reveals fascinating images of an Orient long since gone, and the first aerial images of ancient Persia that went around the world. The journal of an early air travel adventure!

Despite a difficult childhood, Jackie has found happiness as an artist. When the dark past catches up with her, she sets out with her artistic character Jack Torera to unravel her mentally ill mother's unhappiness, which inspired her art but divided her families in Switzerland and Spain. A film about reconciliation and the courage and strength to confront family taboos.

Giulia Tonelli, principal dancer at the Zurich Opera House, returns from maternity leave. She has to fight to find her place and a new balance, between the competitive and extremely demanding world of an elite ballet company and her new family life. The documentary is an unprecedented immersion in the microcosm of a great opera house from 2019-2021, an intimate and committed look at the journey of a woman who reclaims her own body and herself to be back on stage. Laura Kaehr's film won the "Audience Award" at the Zurich Film Festival in 2022.

Röbi has lung cancer and only a few months to live. He does not want chemotherapy or radiation. The film accompanies Röbi on the last metres of his life. In everyday life, in the cellar archive where his life passes him by, when friends visit him on the sofa, on his last holidays with his grandchildren. A film about doubts, hopes, crises of a courageous person who looks “brother death” in the eye and celebrates life in the process.

Three old photographers in the mid-1980s - from the patron of a family business spanning several generations to a city original documenting Zurich's nightlife with his Polaroid camera - shortly before the advent of digital photography. Friedrich Kappeler and his cameraman Pio Corradi, both trained photographers, portray their professional colleagues with great empathy, poetry and humor.

Thurgau painter Adolf Dietrich's paintings have found their way out into the world - as far as the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But Dietrich himself stayed in his village all his life and painted what he loved and what preoccupied him: Neighborhood children, bouquets of flowers, pets, the view from his parlor window into the neighbor's garden, onto the village street and the view from his garden onto Lake Constance. In this documentary, Friedrich Kappeler meets people who still knew the Berlinger painter: his nephew, various models, an employer and collectors. Most of them were already very old in 1991, but when they talk about Dietrich, they light up and laugh. Kappeler has clearly found a connection with the contemporary witnesses and takes us on an entertaining journey through the landscape of Untersee and the wonderfully photographed paintings. A journey on which we learn a lot about the painter, but also about the living conditions of the time.

This is no ordinary documentary about the forest. Although there are foresters and charcoal burners and lots of greenery in the images, there is also a thought-provoking text by Robert Walser and a witty Schubert opera with Mathias Gnädinger as a hunter lying in wait for a pair of lovers. The result is a peculiar homage to the Swiss forest, to the quiet places where people tend to retreat, turning to their dreams, sufferings, joys, work or hobbies. An essay about the forest by Friedrich Kappeler, based on personal experience.

The director embarks on a journey of discovery through a country that he previously associated primarily with two things: the songs that were sung to children in Ethiopia in his childhood to save them from hunger and the memory of a woman he loved. In the process, he makes numerous surprising and touching encounters with people who are working to rebuild the country and who no let themselves be deterred from pursuing the craziest of dreams. In the course of his journey through Ethiopia, director Frédéric Baillif frees himself from the images he has created in his head to discover a country that is completely different from the one he had imagined.

Swiss and West Africans meet face to face: a livestock breeder from Burkina Faso with a dairy farmer from the Bernese Lake District, an organic farmer with a charismatic veterinary doctor from the Sahel. Despite their obvious differences there is always something they have in common, be it their detached view of the financial rewards involved, the respect they have for both people and animals, or simply their striving for development. This documentary shows meetings between two worlds, between the savannah and alpine meadows, between West Africa and Switzerland. A different sort of “road movie”, not one that travels from city to city or from one adventure to another but a movie that helps to “close the gap” between peoples, made up of snapshots that capture the differences as well as the similarities of the subjects.

Director Kappeler returns to the subject of his past film "Die Ballade des Schreiben" (1995), about poet Gerhard Meier. Now that documentary is viewed as an essential introduction into the poet’s work, a man who became a writer after 33 years working in a factory. Two years after the film Gehard Meier’s wife Dorli died, and in 2005 the now 88-year-old Meier published "Ob die Granatbäume blühen", possibly his most moving work so far. Kappeler’s new documentary expands the themes in his previous one with "Das Wolkenschattenboot". In beautiful, dense images, we experience a talented writer, a person who is true to himself and who conveys his calm and clear view of the world to us in wonderful, powerful language.

The image of the ever-laughing clown from Ascona is well known. He is recognised as a national figure. Performing on tours throughout the world has made him renowned. This film by Friedrich Kappeler is a portrait of a clown and a man still with full of ideas and action with almost 70 years.

Born in 1900, Varlin decided he had had enough of Switzerland at about the age of 20 and left for Berlin where he became a painter. He then moved to Paris, remaining there a dozen or so years despite the difficulty of earning enough money to keep body and soul together. When the owner of the gallery in which he usually exhibited his work died, Varlin returned to Zurich. But even in Switzerland he did not feel particularly welcome or at home in any way. The war over, his paintings seemed very much out of place in the cosy, unruffled world of post-war Switzerland. Varlin began to travel extensively, while continuing to paint. Eventually he decided to settle at Bergell in canton Grisons, where a significant portion of his work of later years, in terms of both quality and quantity, was completed. He died in 1977. Friedrich Kappeler gives voice to the Swiss painter Varlin, in encounters with his acquaintances and relatives, in his paintings and writings. In addition to well-known works such as "Die Heilsarmee" and portraits of Hulda Zumsteg, Max Frisch, Hugo Loetscher and Friedrich Dürrenmatt, we discover a man full of contradictions. A courageous and sharp-thinking artist on the one hand, an insecure and vulnerable emotional man on the other - a painter who used brush and paint to capture the splendor of everyday objects, but also the fragility of human existence.

Propelled from society by tragic turns, the people of Darwin (population 35) must now find ways to coexist in a place without a government, a church, jobs, or children. The near-ghost town's survival depends on a fragile, gravity-fed waterline that descends from the mountains where top secret weapons are being tested. One "accidental" drop of a bomb, they half-joke, could wipe out their entire town. "Darwin" is a documentary film de Nick Brandestini about an isolated community at the end of a weathered road in Death Valley, California, and tells the story of a uniquely American place and yet a place that is unique even within America.

With his band Zeal & Ardor, Swiss musician Manuel Gagneux was catapulted overnight from the underground to the big stages of the world. The bold mix of Black Metal and old work songs and field hollers by enslaved African-Americans – his answer to a racist provocation on the Internet – is politically explosive. Religion, racism, segregation and appropriation: With his music Gagneux questions and breaks taboos. But being praised as a new kind of leader by his fans frightens the introverted artist. How can he deal with the oversized expectations? Filmmakers Olivier Joliat and Matthias Willi show us the fairy-tale rise of a musician and his band - and how fame affects creative work.

The theater group Valendas from the Safiental in the canton of Grisons adapts Friedrich Dürrenmatt's grotesque novel "Durcheinandertal". They consider the material suitable to represent their world theatrically. The novel tells the story of a foundation that is supposed to help a remote mountain valley to prosperity. The film accompanies the creative process up to the performance in front of an audience. The Safiental is considered a "space with little potential". It is time to depopulate such valleys and leave them to nature. This is the politically pointed debate. Director Bruno Moll has adapted the book for the stage and follow the creative process from rehearsal to performance in front of an audience.

While "Les nomades du soleil" follows the nomads of the Wodaabe and their herds in Niger in 1955, "Les hommes des châteaux" shows the everyday life of the sedentary tribe of the Batammariba in the north of Dahomey, today's Benin. Unique contemporary testimonies of ways of life and cultures that are disappearing.

On the barrier island of Sapelo, two young brothers are growing up in the last remaining enclave of the Saltwater Geechee people. Their greatest joy is exploring the wilderness like their adoptive mother, Cornelia Walker Bailey, did as a child. As Sapelo’s storyteller and elder matriarch, she works to preserve what remains of this island community established by her ancestors. At the dawn of adolescence, the brothers inherit her hope, but their bond is tested as they begin to face the wider world. The documentary by Nick Brandestini was awarded the Sesterce d'or for Best Feature Film at Visions du Réel 2020.

The everyday life of midwives unfolds on the threshold where new life is born and life may fade away. The film shows how midwives support couples during pregnancy and birth. It lets us participate in the balancing act between a safe and a perfect birth. The film provides an insight into a mystery that is considered both a miracle and a high-risk medical undertaking.

Welcome to the prime of life. All his life, Rudy has worked hard for the firm, and for the family. But now, everything is about to change: Rudy retires. No alarm clock, no meetings, no travels to distant countries to set the pace. Shopping, cooking, gardening, and the daily routines of marital bliss will now fill his schedule. Rudy was actually looking forward to it, to the next phase. But as he soon realises, the prime of life is a wild ride on an emotional rollercoaster. Retirement is not for cowards.

Coming of age in Barrow, Alaska - the northernmost community of the United States - has become a little more complicated for the local youth than it was for their ancestors who originally named this place “Ukpiagvik” (“where we hunt snowy owls”). They are the twenty-first century descendants of a culture that has endured for millennia on this isolated, but rapidly changing tundra. The harvest of the agvik (bowhead whale) remains the heart of their culture. "Children of the Arctic" is a year-in-the-life portrait of Native Alaskan teenagers navigating between both being modern American teenagers and the inheritors of an endangered culture.

Bratsch, located in the Leuk mountains, is an Upper Valais village with a magnificent view of the Rhone Valley. Just one hundred people still lived in the village in 2015. Since the municipality merger with Gampel down in the valley, the school building has stood empty. Something was about to change. The film documents the development and changes in the village from the reopening of the school in autumn 2016 to the present.

In the dramatic first half of the 20th century, in which dreams and traumas are so close together, almost all possibilities of modern existence are played out. How to live, how to love? These questions are different ones for women. The women around the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, his wife Ada, his three daughters Georgia, Marianne and Waltraut and his partner Lilly Reich seize the opportunities of the new age, but also experience the limitations of old patterns. When Mies emigrated to the USA in 1938, they struggled on their own through the barbarism of the Nazi era and the war. Their life was always determined by the absent husband, father and lover. The hybrid documentary «The Mies van der Rohes» tells a troubling family story and designs a moral painting of the modern age with unpublished films, images and documents - from a female perspective.

Inside Marrakech’s bustling Medina, Samir is looking for love and a brighter future. But his summer flings all come to a bitter end at the airport and he is left behind in a country with limited possibilities. When Samir really falls in love, he is faced with a major decision: Should he listen to his sisters and agree to an arranged marriage in Morocco? Or should he follow his love and his dream of a brighter future in Europe?

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” Einstein. All over the world bees have been dying for the past three years. Although the causes for this are still a mystery, one thing is already clear: there is more at stake than simply a few dead insects, and a great deal more than just honey. Seeking answers, the film embarks on a journey to meet with people whose lives depend on bees: to a Swiss beekeeper living on an Alp; to the gigantic almond plantations in California; to a bee brain researcher in Berlin; to a pollen trader in China; and to the killer bees in the Arizona desert. All report on how the bees are vanishing. The film tells us about their lives. And about ours.

On the final journey back from high in the Andes down to the Amazon jungle, the director remains haunted by the film she has just completed about the Huaorani Indians and the anthropologist Laura Rival. A farewell to this alien people, strange and unfathomable, but also to her own people who are no easier to understand – the white helpers, researchers, filmmakers… Destroyers?

Stations are islands, detached between worlds and times, cosmopolitan meeting points and junctions. "Mahatah - Side Stories from Main Stations" plunges us into this world where, almost without realising it, people scrub the stairs, set up the train compositions, look after security and sell tickets - or kebabs.

The film explores the destruction of a unique train station in Zurich and the construction of the new prison and police centre in its place. From the perspective of the filmmaker’s window, and with testimony from prisoners awaiting deportation, the film probes how we deal with the extinction of history and its replacement with total security.

Based on Patricia Highsmith’s personal writings and accounts of her family and lovers, the film casts new light on the famous thriller writer’s life and oeuvre, permeated by themes of love and its defining influence on identity.

Boobs. Melons. Bazookas: American director Kristen Vermilyea has large breasts, neck pain, back pain and balance issues.
 Her decision to get a reduction triggers questions about identity, aging and bodies. Kristen departs on a series of wacky and humorous adventures before going under the knife.

In a small, shabby bar in the deep south of Italy a group of older men, almost all farmers and hunters, play in their spare time a drinking game called Padrone e sotto. The goal of the game: You win if you’re allowed to drink – whereas the ones who are never invited to drink are the fools of the table. While the beer is flows and tempers flare, the director tries to understand what confused him as a child: Where exactly is the line between game and reality? Are these men only fooling or are they serious when they yell at each other? Are they opponents in the game as well opponents outside the muggy bar?

Filmmaker and anthropologist Céline Pernet questions her relationship with the men of her generation. Responding to an advert, men aged 30 to 45 years old answer her questions, in a quest as personal as it is societal. The film casts an amused and caring eye, reflecting an urgent need to discuss current models of masculinity.

During the Second World War, Friedel Bohny-Reiter, a Swiss Red Cross nurse with the “Children’s Relief” service, worked in the camp at Rivesaltes, which like many others in France held Jews, gypsies and people of Spanish origin who either lived in France or had come as refugees to the free zone. Thanks to this young nurse from Basel, many children were saved from certain death in Auschwitz. The film attempts to tell her story with the help of the diary she kept religiously through all those dark years, interpolating interviews with some of those she saved.

A musical journey through the world of tones, sounds and noises: with Manfred Eicher, the outstanding producer of contemporary music. The film traces his life at concerts, in recording studios, in back rooms and off the beaten path with such musical contemporaries as Arvo Pärt, Dino Saluzzi, Jan Garbarek, Eleni Karaindrou, Anouar Brahem, Gianluigi Trovesi, Kim Kashkashian, Nik Bärtsch, Marilyn Mazur and many others.

Expeditions to the heart of the country with the author Pedro Lenz, who lives above the Flügelrad Restaurant next to the railway station in Olten. An oscillating snapshot of the prevailing mood in Swiss society emerges from the interplay between stories of everyday life and Lenz’s reflective texts in Swiss dialect, replete with laconic poesy and a tinge of yearning.

After four years of Donald Trump's reign, Jonathan Katz, a Jewish activist from New York, travels across the American Midwest trying to get Bernie Sanders elected president of the United States. Committed body and soul to a revolution through the ballot box, he will find his deepest convictions shaken. During what is, for him as for Bernie, the last campaign, he meets a new generation of activists for whom this is only the first.

Drawing inspiration from his personal encounter with the Italian refugee child Giovanna during World War II, Markus Imhoof tells how refugees and migrants are treated today: on the Mediterranean Sea, in Italy and in Switzerland.

The film traces possible alliances with the fungal reign. As if in an uprising of spores, the encounters of the film explore the theme of renewal, and question what connects us when the world seems to be falling apart.

Mitholz, a village in the Bernese Oberland, was destroyed in 1947 by the explosion of a Swiss army ammunition depot. After decades of secrecy, the population learns in 2018 that the danger is not over. They must now leave their homeland. A story of abuse of trust and state failure, for which the population pays the price.

This film is no classic author’s portrait, but rather a documentary that through fiction brings Martin Suter’s novels to life and also brings us another step closer to the creator behind them too. «Most often, imagination says more than reality.» Suter weaves from story to story – stories that have been beautifully, cinematographically and impactfully captured, illuminating both his characters and their secrets, and above all his unique cosmos (so near and yet so far) – a world of opposites shaped by the search for stories. This film reveals everything – except the truth.

After 40 years Alain Tanner again travels to the port of Genoa, where he worked for a shipping company as a 22-year-old. On the back of his own memories he depicts the rough world of the dockworkers, another of those trades that has undergone fundamental changes as a result of recessions, modernisation and liberalisation. “The visual impression of the harbour and the city has changed very little, but what goes on there nowadays is completely different. The city is still as beautiful and alien and somewhat sad as before. But the port is dying, like so many other major ports. In Genoa, as elsewhere in Italy, the economic, social and political climate is highly explosive. But you also feel that things are in flow and the country is on the verge of some far-reaching changes. In this film I wanted to explore my own memories of Genoa, uncover its present and guess at its future. Genoa, this beautiful, this sad, this alien town has become for me a metaphor for society in change.”

A revelatory, thrilling and emotional journey behind the scenes of Blue Note Records. Since 1939, Blue Note has been inspiring generations of musicians in search of individual expression. Through current recording sessions, rare archive material and in talks with Blue Note stars such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Ambrose Akinmusire, Sophie Huber tells of the dawn of jazz to Hip-Hop.

Shortly before the end of World War II, the SS leadership wanted to blow up the Simplon Tunnel. The Swiss secret service contacted Italian resistance fighters: On April 22, 1945, they set fire to 64 tons of explosives - and thereby saved the tunnel. A Swiss trainman and a Catholic priest also played an important role. A contemporary document with eyewitnesses and archive material about one of the most dangerous resistance actions on the Swiss border.

What are skinheads? A journey across Europe, the USA and Canada shows a picture of the current skinhead scene and its history: from the beginnings of the subculture, which grew out of a passion for ska and reggae music, the emergence of the term, which was coined by black Jamaicans, to the rise of the far-right scene. Fascinating portrait of an extremely divided and discredited movement.

In 2009 the body of Alice B is found washed up on an African beach. Next to the corpse of the white, 30-year old European woman lie those of a dozen black migrants. Eight years after this tragedy, Pierre-Alain Meier travels to Senegal in the hope of understanding the story behind this shipwreck. When he was Alice’s age, he wandered the streets of Dakar planning the production of the film Hyenas. Like her, he was a white person in Africa. Perhaps like her, he would hoped he could blend in a bit more with his African friends and co-workers and not be so unmistakeably foreign. Following in Alice’s footsteps, the filmmaker today puts his own story into perspective, with humility and affection, allowing us access to a very intimate terrain. Farewell to Africa tells the story of a final journey and sets out to explore the complex ties – both rich and asymmetrical – that have never ceased to exist between Europe and French-speaking Africa. (Luciano Barisone)

The feature documentary is an intimate memorial paying tribute to the man, thinker, writer and painter Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The focus is on the hitherto unknown love story between Friedrich Dürrenmatt and his wife Lotti Dürrenmatt-Geissler, a close relationship that lasted for forty years. After Lotti’s death in 1983, Dürrenmatt suffered from a profound crisis, which he overcame with a new, great love. His sister Verena Dürrenmatt, together with his children Peter Dürrenmatt and Ruth Dürrenmatt, share the exclusive story of their brother and father for the first time.

«Let's make a documentary together,» Chrigu says. «At some point, I'll get out of it». The documentary tells the story of a young man who had big plans for his life. After an advanced stage tumor is discovered in him at the age of 24, he fights for his life. Jan Gassmann accompanies him with his camera. The result is not a film about death, but rather about life. Powerful and without false sentimentality as well as deeply touching authenticity.

Oscar, not quite a child anymore, scavenges for scrap metal for his father. He spends his life in improvised landfills among what remains of leftovers. Worlds apart, yet close-by, there is Stanley. He tidies the church in exchange for a monetised hospitality, picks fruits, herds sheep: anything that keep his foreign body busy. Oscar, the young Sicilian, and Stanley the Nigerian don’t seem to have much in common. Except for the feeling of being thrown into the world, to suffer the same refusal, the same overwhelming wave of choices imposed on them by others.

The film sets out in the footsteps of German writer Marc Fischer who obsessively searched for the last musical legend of our time, the founding father of Bossa Nova, Brazilian musician João Gilberto. Fischer described his journey in a book, «Hobalala», but committed suicide one week before it was published. By taking up Marc Fischer’s quest, following his steps one by one, thanks to all the clues he left us, we pursue João Gilberto to understand the history, the very soul and essence of Bossa Nova. But who can tell whether we will meet him or not?

The documentary enters the heart of football culture and uses the dressing room as the central stage. By putting on their jerseys, professionals, women, juniors and seniors take on different roles for the duration of a game. The joy of the game unites them all. The film shows the National League A women's team from GC Zurich, SC Kriens from the Challenge League, the C-juniors of FC Blue Stars Zurich and the veteran team of FC Wettswil-Bonstetten in the dressing room. A unity is created from single individuals. By putting on the football jersey, each and every one of them is given their task. Everyone faces the pressure of the game, but also their own fear. The film shows how teams come together, forget everyday life and become part of a greater unity through the ritual of football.

The documentary road movie recounts the journey of the African singer Youssou N'Dour: From Atlanta to New Orleans, from New York via Luxembourg and Dakar to the slave island of Gorée, he follows the traces of the black slaves and their music, jazz. He is guided by the blind pianist Moncef Genoud. Together with extraordinary musicians, they create a repertoire in the course of the journey that is permeated by the different cultures.

Fraudsters and their victims, wage dumping and illegal employment – we follow employment market inspectors Frédy, Regula, Marcos, Stefan and Chrümu and share their frustration as they try to carry out the often almost impossible task of enforcing Switzerland’s mandatory minimum standards in the work market. A political road movie that provides insights into the complex situation and is as exciting as a thriller.

In 1943, chemist Albert Hofmann stumbles upon a previously unknown substance in his Basel research laboratory: LSD - the "atomic bomb of the mind". He recognizes the enormous potential of this new substance, which will change the world. Hippies, secret services and the military experiment with it. Doctors argue about the usability of LSD as a cure. The documentary is a cinematic trip through six decades and tells the story of a drug that has lost none of its mystery to this day.

The first feature documentary about the legendary pantomime artist Marcel Marceau. He inspires several generations of artists, among them his own grandson and family, who cast a new light on his life's work.

The Future Circular Collider is the machine of the future. Thanks to it, we will finally be able to go back in time to the origin of our universe. But which way do we go to set up the largest scientific instrument of all time? Between metaphysics and underground tunnels, a story of the preparations or how men are ready to move mountains for more knowledge.

The film begins with a volcanic eruption that stranded the director, Pauline Julier, in a foreign city, among strangers. In turns, these strangers evoke legends about the formation of the continents, the blooming of the tectonic plates or the explosion of ash that provoked summers without sun.

They have traveled far - by plane, train, bus or boat. Now they find themselves in the integration class of teacher Christian Zingg in Basel, where young people from all over the world get to know the language and culture of our country within two years. Anna Thommen's documentary film, which has won numerous awards at numerous festivals, opens up a view into a world that is hardly known. The director skilfully interweaves various stories, observed with great sensitivity.

Nardos, an Azmari singer from Addis Ababa, dreams of telling stories about the lives of ordinary people through her music. In her search of stories for her songs, she meets Gennet, a poet who lives on the streets with her children. As Nardos puts the lives of Ethiopian women, their visions and power at the centre of her creation, we dive deeper and deeper into a rapidly changing country.

Photo?, the clown calls the public from the ring of the circus. The delicious number like the even more famous soap bubble number and other Pic classics can be enjoyed in "Le Cirque de Pic". They form the heart of Thomas Ott's affectionate portrait film. Emil Steinberger tells how he was enthusiastic about Pic from the beginning and how he recommended the clown from St.Gallen to the Roncalli Circus director. Ott reviews Pic's career. Pic himself tells how varied and romantic the spartan life in the circus caravan was. Photos show that the subtle art of the clown cannot be separated from the person Richard Hirzel, who knows how to enchant with his empathic poetry. The portrait closes with scenes from the current programme "Comical Bones", in which Pic shines as the narrator. It is Emil once again who praises Pic's subtle and expressive facial expressions.

What's in the air? - A cinematic diary: personally anchored, at the same time political and social, with the courage for imbalance, for irritating simultaneity of inner and outer world, everyday life and state of emergency. The film spins a multi-layered web, captures feelings, thoughts, contradictory tendencies in a poetic and experimental way: an emotional reflection of this ambivalent time between powerlessness and departure.

The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.

Wild Plants are plants that seed themselves on fallow land, take possession of seemingly uninhabitable terrain and create new habitats. But wild plants are also people who create their own utopias and become impulse generators for others. People live in many scattered places around the world and projects are growing in which botanical and biographical uncontrolled growth are combined.

In the Appenzell region of Switzerland, spiritual healers have always been part of local traditions. Here, natural health practitioners create tinctures and salves in an attempt to complement the procedures of official medicine. This leads to many unexpected and dynamic forms of collaboration.

Cuno Amiet lived from 1868-1961, yet seen today many of his pictures have a contemporary edge. Amiet was a Swiss pioneer of modern painting along with Ferdinand Hodler and Giovanni Giacometti. The film visits three highly individual Amiet collectors in Dallas, Geneva and Studen, near Biel. Surrounded by Amiet’s works they tell us what part these paintings play in their lives.

Cairo, a city of more than 20 million people, has recently gone through multiple political, cultural and economic upheavals, forcing Egyptian society to reinvent itself. In Egypt, people don't live on their own and it's only after they get married that they can leave their parent's home to create their own household. Whatever their intimate feelings might be, marriage is an inevitable step towards independence. The film follows the path towards marriage through the eyes of three couples. Instead of presenting marriage as the union of two beings for eternity, FIANCEES uses marriage as a pretext to talk about men and women, and the social pressures young couples face every day. By freeing the intimate and sincere voice of those characters, the film allows us to see the aspirations and fears of today's Egyptian youth.

Why does an apparently large majority in Russia back Vladimir Putin? A timely testimony from the heart of Russia, this documentary sheds light on the influence of aggressive state propaganda on its people. It is set on a lost island (‘ostrov” in Russian) in the Caspian Sea, where people have been left to fend for themselves since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ostrov’s formerly well-functioning collective fishery closed down decades ago. Since then, there have been no gas or electricity, neither any formal administration on the island. For Ivan, a third-generation fisherman, there is only one way to support his family: poaching. Nevertheless, inundated with the state propaganda on TV, Ivan still believes in Putin; he believes that after having restored Russia's honor and having created a strong army, he will help common people like him and their families. Awarded the Swiss Film Prize 2022 as best documentary film.

What determines our biography? Fate, chance, others? And what influence does the zeitgeist have? Filmmaker Frank Matter set out to find people who, like him, were born on June 8, 1964, but in completely different circumstances. Following their biographies, the film takes us on a moving and visually powerful journey through the last decades.

A film about people who have fought for more freedom and justice – and have had to pay dearly for it. The two women and two men from Tibet, Congo, Chile, and Turkey now live in Switzerland. In their native countries they were badly tortured for their human rights efforts. Nevertheless, they have not lost their belief in a better world.

Facing the consequences of a violent uprooting, Mateo Sobode Chiqueno has been recording stories, songs, and testimonies of his Ayoreo people since the seventies. In an attempt to preserve fragments of a disappearing culture, Mateo walks across communities in the arid and desolate Paraguayan Chaco region, and registers on cassettes the experiences of other Ayoreo who, like him, were born in the vast forest, free and nomadic, without any contact with white civilization, until religious missionaries forced them to abandon their ancestral territory, their means of subsistence, their beliefs and their home.

This documentary takes a multi-layered approach to Saint Nicholas of Flüe. Rare witness accounts and quotations from his transmitted mystical texts, in particular the vision of the tower and the fountain, paint a portrait of a multifaceted and historically significant personality. Restored version.

They are single, widowed or divorced; they have had children, husbands, work; they have a life behind them, but also one to come… The film reveals the intimate lives of five women in their sixties who are waging a discreet daily battle against solitude. One fills her time with activities, another is recovering from the loss of her husband, others find sustenance in nature. And love? They still believe in it, of course.

The daily life in the primary school of Taillères, in the La Brévine valley, is filmed over the course of an entire school year, from 1959 to 1960. Henry Brandt's film, which won the Vela d'argento in Locarno in 1961, is a unique testimony to pedagogical processes, with a tender observation of the relationship between the young protagonists, their place of birth and the adult world.

At the beginning of the 1970s: Who are the people who practice the dying craft of home posing in Baselbiet? And what problems do they have to contend with? Exciting and moving picture of social and economic contexts and dependencies and living monument of a once flourishing craft. A milestone of Swiss documentary filmmaking

In his "Swiss Autumn Chronicle 1989", Alexander J. Seiler records the political debate about the Swiss army triggered by the "Group for a Switzerland without an Army" and its popular initiative: from the official commemorations "Diamant" and the unofficial counter-events "Klunker" to public debates throughout the country and the referendum. The film also follows the play "Jonas und sein Veteran" by Max Frisch, directed by Benno Besson, from the first rehearsals to the premieres at the Schauspielhaus Zurich and the Theatre Vidy Lausanne and the reactions of the audience and political celebrities. The result is an exciting dual chronicle of a democratic and an artistic process: politics as theatre and theatre as politics. Above all, however, the result is an impressive picture of Swiss democracy and two opposing "Switzerlands": the other way of thinking, the other way of cohesion, the Switzerland of tomorrow that many hoped for become tangible and visible.

The shooting of this farming chronicle in the Gruyère region lasted a whole year, from July 1989 to July 1990. A year of work and festivities in the family of Conrad and Louise Bapst, their children and grandchildren, who live in La Roche (canton of Fribourg). In summer, part of the family goes up to the upper pastures with the herd, and, for the next three months, will move six times as the grass for the cows grows in higher and higher places. Down at the farm, the rest of the family bring in the hay, the after crop, and tend the vegetable garden.Then come the autumn and winter chores, feast-days, the sale of cheeses, voting for or against the Swiss Army, the meetings to discuss whether or not to join the European Union. A patient and human approach to an almost silent minority of Switzerland.

The film is an attempt to offer an insight into the Japanese Kabuki star, Tamasaburo Bando. The film consists of four continuous acts: A prelude, the dance of the drunken snake, «Orochi», from Japan's oldest myth, is followed by a documentary section, «Tamasaburo Bando and his idols». It includes encounters with Han Takehara, geisha and dancer, Haruko Sugimura, film actress (Ozu, Naruse, Kurosawa), and Butoh dancer, Kazuo Ohno. The next act, «Twilight Geisha», is a light-hearted variation on the geisha theme. In the fourth and final section, Tamasaburo dances the Kabuki drama «Sagimusume», a story of reincarnation and of a girl's transformation on a snowy winter's night.

A documentary film about Swiss musician and singer/songwriter Stephan Eicher, his Yéniche roots and the history and persecution of the Yéniche people in Switzerland and their links to Swiss music.

While managers of Swiss banks in the USA ruefully apologise for their tax evasions practices and customer data is disclosed to the American authorities, Rudolf Elmer, former auditor at bank Julius Bär, is indicted for violating the Swiss banking secrecy law on the Cayman Islands. Rudolf Elmer: from insider to critic.

Bombs, war, angry bearded men, shrouded sobbing women, shattered cities: Iraq, as seen through the eyes of the western media these days. These images are juxtaposed with those from the fifties and seventies: films with frivolous music, unveiled women who study; elegantly dressed men in Bagdad, a modern city. How did it come to this? Film director Samir tells the story of his globalised middle-class Iraqi family, scattered between Auckland, Moscow, Paris, London and Buffalo, New York.

In 1976 a massive explosion at chemicals factory Icmesa in the Italian Seveso had devastating consequences for neighbouring communities and their environment. Icmesa’s parent company was Givaudan, which in turn belonged to Hoffman La Roche, based in Basel. Following the accident, Icmesa’s technical director Jorg Sambeth was charged with failing to keep adequate security measures. During his investigations into the true cause and background to the catastrophe, Sambeth stumbled upon facts that were damaging to those who were paying his lawyers. Yet he is sentenced to five years in prison. How should he take up his grievances with this conglomerate of companies?

Daniele von Arb was 16 years old in 1970 when he and his friends founded the revolutionary cell in Zurich later listed by the U.S. secret service CIA in its chart on international terrorism under the code name “Annebäbi”. Today he is a fortune-teller and future consultant. A hurtling journey through the armed struggle of the 1970s, entry into the cosmos of spirituality and finally, in 1989, a first class ticket to freedom.

Jonathan Katz strongly believes that candidate Bernie Sanders is the only hope for the United States of America threatened by Donald Trump. Sanders is a voice outside the establishment and has put new values and priorities into his political agenda. Pushed forward by his enthusiasm, Jonathan joins the thousands of women and men that rally around the caucuses supporting Senator Sanders.

A powerful man, who is also the former prime minister of Georgia, has developed an exquisite hobby. He collects century old trees along Georgia’s coastline. He commissions his men to uproot them and bring them to his private garden. Some of these trees are as tall as 15-floor-buildings. And in order to transplant a tree of such dimensions some other trees are chopped down, electric cables are shifted and new roads are paved through mandarin plantations. The film moves the concept of uprooting from its metaphorical meaning into an oppressive, tangible and yet surreal reality.

June 2020, Corona, one year after the national women's strike. Six directors dive into the everyday life of six women and explore what it means to be a woman in today's Switzerland.

An ethnographic documentary film in three movements, along the lines of a symphony. The three movements reflect the three differing stages of development co-existing within the mountainous canton. In Göschenen, at the foot of the Gotthard, which straddles Europe’s North-South axis, industrialization took hold long ago, and the mountain farmers of old now work in offices and factories. In the Schächtental, however, the traditional family-centric mountain economy survives. Meanwhile, the village of Bristen in the Maderanertal is in the throes of upheaval: while the traditional farming communities still exist, nigh on 250 inhabitants leave the area daily to go to work or school.

Artist, anarchist, drop-out, sans papiers: Giovanni Segantini was all of this. He created, usually under the open sky, monumental works in the idealised image of nature of an alpine landscape. In the course of his lifetime he climbed ever higher in quest of more light. He died at the age of 41 in an alpine hut at 2700m in the Engadine. The film provides insight into his difficult childhood and boyhood, shares his inner processes and crises as a painter, as well as his contradictory dealings with motherly love and eroticism – and ultimately his desperate struggle against death.

Five highly original musicians from different countries form the Accordion Tribe. Together they aim to reinforce the original power of the long disdained instrument. The film follows the energetic soundscapes and their performers on a journey through Europe. An extraordinarily intensive documentary on the communicative, connecting power of music.

Dusk, alpine summer time. Through a milk funnel, the dairymen, rarely a dairymaid, call out the alpine blessing or Bättruef. Every day, in all weathers. They ask God and the saints to avert harm from the alp, as loudly as possible, because as far as their voice can be heard, the protective spell should also work. At the mercy of the forces of nature in the mountain world at night, the alpine farmers experience their own existence as part of a greater whole. They call out the Alpine blessing out of deep inner conviction.

The Swiss artist Markus Raetz is an established figure in the international art world. For the film by Iwan Schumacher, the artist from Bern is for the first time giving a camera team an insight into his 40 years of work.

Temporality and age are inherent in every object and creature and, depending on one’s outlook, may transcend to infinity. Schaub explores, together with the architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli and Alvaro Siza Vieira, the artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias and drummer virtuoso Jojo Mayer, the magic of sacred spaces, defined here as far more than church buildings. Who owns spirituality?

A three-year journey with actor Bruno Ganz. He plays various roles in various places, but he also plays Bruno Ganz – filming and directing friends. Again and again he works on the role of Dr. Faust, the figure who – speaking for us all – desperately wants to discover “what holds the world together at the core”. A thousand days of searching for one's own destiny, with despair as the only companion, and placing hope in the creative power of poetry.

Four young people with physical disabilities try to overcome their isolation and the difficulties of living together. In a vacation home, they talk openly with people with and without disabilities about the challenges they face in relationships and sexuality.

The Kempf family lives on three different farms at different altitudes in the Schächen Valley in the Canton of URI. ten times a year they move from farm to farm with their livestock: up the mountain in the spring, down to the valley in autumn – and then up again in winter to farm their called “Pfaffen”, at an altitude of 1725 meters above sea level. This is where they feed their livestock the hav they have collected from the steep alpine slopes during the summer. The film is an intimate portrait of a family, with who the farmer's grandparents and his sister also live. Over the course of the year, the film director and the family developed a close relationship, close enough to render visible the problems of modern times in conjunction with this archaic lifestyle, problems which the farmers refuse to let get them down.

A fast-paced film about people whose feet are their primitive and powerful instrument of artistic expression. Beginning with “bödele” in Central Switzerland, this film journeys from tap dance and flamenco to Irish dance. The rhythmic stamping of the shoes is reminiscent of ethnic ritualistic folk dances. Evolving from the “dances of the folk” are show and competition dance. The film provides insight into passionate dancers and people who express joy, desire and sadness through rhythm with their feet.

At a time when audiences are filling up the cinemas to see the feature adaptation of Bruno Manser's Life in the Jungle, Christof Kühn's successful documentary BRUNO MANSER - LAKI PENAN from 2007, now digitialized for online streaming, is the perfect choice. With original film and sound recordings by Manser and interviews with his companions in the Borneo jungle, this documentary provides an authentic insight into the adventurous life of the Swiss environmental activist.

The experiment is a journey through the remotest time and on the smallest scale that we can imagine: an exploration of matter about one millionth of a second following the Big Bang that generated our universe. As the new experiment at CERN proceeds in its exploration of the mysterious energy that animates the universe, scientists and artists guide us towards the shadow line where science and art, in different ways, pursue truth and beauty. Some of these men and women believe in god, while others believe only in experiment and doubt. But in their search for truth they are all alert to an elusive sixth – or seventh – sense… the sense of beauty.

Croatia, January 1992. In the midst of the Yugoslav Wars, Chris, a young Swiss journalist is found dead in mysterious circumstances. He was wearing the uniform of an international mercenary group. Anja Kofmel was his cousin. As a little girl, she used to admire this handsome young man; now a grown-up woman, she decides to investigate his story, trying to understand what really was the involvement of Chris in the conflict

The Swiss National Association for the Storage of Radioactive Waste plans to build a permanent waste disposal site in Wellenberg, Canton of Nidwalden. A regional citizens’ action group is formed to protest against it. Murer not only interviews supporters and opponents, in particular the Alpine farmers living on the Wellenberg. He starts by raising the question of a time-scale that is out of all proportion to the human lifespan as a measure of time. Fredi Murer dedicated the film to the “children and children’s children”, both of the farmers on the Wellenberg and of all of us. For the first time, Murer deals explicitly with the ‘can-do’ generation that lives and works as though they were the last people on this earth.

A few hours after the Iraq war started in March 2003, Antonio Gutierrez’ photo was sent around the world: the first fallen soldier on the American side, and he wasn’t even an American! In death Antonio’s dream finally came true: like 38,000 other non-American soldiers he had enlisted in the US army because of the promise of American citizenship. Now he received it posthumously. Heidi Specogna’s film tells the moving story of a former street kid from the slums of Guatemala, who made the long journey to the North. An idealistic young man who wasn’t an adventurer, but full of hope and longing for a better future, and who died an American hero.

At the far end of Alaska, filmmaker Roman Droux fulfils a dream and travels to the land of grizzly bears together with bear researcher David Bittner. The two adventurers set off for the realm of the bears to a place where there is no trace of human civilization. Surrounded by crystal-clear torrents, they experience the care of a mother bear and impressive battles of giant male bears. Roman Droux brings pictures of breathtaking beauty to the big screen. A lively nature film for the whole family.

Getrud Woker, one of the first female professors in Europe, was an early feminist and pacifist, advocating for women’s rights and against war. Yet her story was never included in historical accounts, despite the fact that she challenged the societal conventions of the day to oppose gender discrimination and immoral war practices. She was – as she continues to be today – a true inspiration for self-determined women

A fictionalized documentary about the great Japanese poet Bashô (1644-1694), the spiritual father of Haiku poetry. A monk plays the role of Bashô and walks through the Japanese countryside, following the tracks of the poet’s travel diaries. On the way he writes many of his famous haiku poems. A film about poetry, meditation, zen buddhism and a view of untouched, virgin nature, seen and to understand as a lost paradise.

The internet has changed everything, also for journalism: business models are falling by the wayside, news is available for free, anywhere and at any time. I accompany journalists in their daily lives, see how they struggle, and I do what they also do: I observe and ask, also question myself, my fascination and my suspicion. I, too, use the net with ease. I am a user – and I am used.

Alphonse lives as a recluse on an Alp. Mother Nature provides him with everything he needs, and being able to live in the present is a gift for him. Monika’s attitude towards time has become serene since her near-death experience. She no longer has a fear of death, which is also sensed by the dementia patients she treats. Sam, a forester, sees the deceased. In his opinion, death only occurs on a physical level. For the Capuchin monks in Schwyz, death and dying are part of everyday life, also for Eugen, a monk and artist in Engelberg who has administered terminal care for more than thirty fellow brothers.

In 1944, four-year-old Argyris Sfountouris survived a brutal massacre committed by the German occupying forces, in which he lost his parents and thirty more relatives. The Greek orphan was sent to the Pestalozzi Children’s Village in Trogen, Switzerland and obtained a Ph.D in maths and astrophysics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Now a 66-year-old man of winning charm and melancholy cheerfulness, Argyris has forever been tackling the horror he had to go through as a little boy. He has not tried to come to terms with it emotionally. Rather, he has tried to learn to live with it and to do his utmost to prevent it from happening again. An intimate, reflective film about the quest for peace and the almost insurmountable difficulties linked to true reconciliation – an open-ended journey.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is arguably the world's most reknowned expert on the process of dying. With Kübler Ross' full collaboration, Haupt's film looks back on her life and career, from her earliest days as a triplet in 1920s Zurich, to her fame as an international lecturer and writer based in the US. Now in her twilight years, Kübler-Ross is bedbound in Arizona, and awaiting death herself. A truly fascinating film that enables us to re-evaluate our own emotions regarding life's greatest certainty, death. With the addition of archive film and interviews with Kübler-Ross' sisters and close colleagues, Haupt builds up a rich picture of a remarkable woman who has done so much to make death less of a taboo.

Five courageous, clever and self-determined women are at the centre of Barbara Miller's documentary #FEMALE PLEASURE. They break the taboo of silence and shame imposed on them by society or their religious communities with their archaic patriarchal structures. Deborah Feldman, Leyla Hussein, Rokudenashiko, Doris Wagner and Vithika Yadav are committed to the sexual enlightenment and self-determination of all women, beyond all social and religious norms and barriers, with incredible positive energy and strength. For this they pay a high price - they are publicly defamed, persecuted and threatened, they are rejected by their former environment and even threatened with death by religious leaders and fanatical believers.

In the “Kunstgiesserei” in St. Gallen renowned artists – such as Urs Fischer, Katharina Fritsch, Peter Fischli, Mariana Castillio Deball, Paul McCarthy, Alex Hanimann and Hans Josephsohn – meet up with Felix Lehner, the charismatic founder of the art foundry. He and his crew translate ideas into sculptures with a great deal of passion and enthusiasm. Their success has led to the fact that some of the production phases had to be outsourced to Shanghai. The cultural and artisanal exchange with China is tremendously enriching. And regardless of whether in Shanghai or St. Gallen, the molten metal is spellbinding as it turns dreams into reality.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry transforms Jacques Dubochet’s life. Passing from the shadows to the light, he is solicited from all sides. What can he do with this voice, which is now being heard by everyone? How to define the struggles to be fought? How to become a “Nobel Citizen”, with the objective of assuming responsibility as a researcher and member of the human community? A speech by Greta Thunberg turns everything upside down.

A film from and about rural Europe capturing a timeless cultural event: a series of head-to-head fights of cows, not bulls, set in a valley in sunny Southern Switzerland. The fights are sudden snorting seesaws, explosions of mass and muscle, archaic and wild. We follow three concurrent story lines: an anxious farmer with his beloved contender, a neurotic unemployed reporter from Zurich come to find a story and a gang of adolescent boys on mopeds trying to catch a pretty girl's eye. This black and white film tries to capture the balance between fascinating tradition and modernity.

Nowadays, the wish to have children ranges between legitimate desires, primary instincts, social pressures and lifestyle choices. With a great deal of expert knowledge and impressive pictures, the film takes a candid look at reproductive medicine and its industry, as well as into the test tube. The point is, however, not to praise or stigmatise reproductive medicine. Nevertheless, the social, political and, above all, ethical implications are palpable at all times. A present-day science fiction.

Two women moved into a new housing estate in 1957. Now both are over 90 years old and could actually enjoy their retirement. But they have to leave their familiar surroundings after more than 60 years because the houses are being demolished.

Klingenhof: A courtyard in a part of Zurich which is inhabited by “all nations”; domicile of the authors; a film spontaneously grown out of the idea, Why not start a project just in front of one's own door? Meeting faces, destinies, by chance, following the word of Claudio Magris, Any place can be the centre of the world. Of course there are at once questions about the origins of the inhabitants, about feeling homesick, being well or not in a foreign country, about how comes you feel at home, generally, at a certain place or not. Friendships are beginning to arise, faces become familiar. Young and old people look for adventures of their own in the courtyard, one arrives, one goes and turns back, maybe one leaves forever. The work on the film was overshaded by the premature death of Hans Stürm, both companion and cameraman.

Between goats, cows and the Alps, Fabiano (38) becomes a father. But the idyll is deceptive: he tries hard to make the alpine cheese the way his drop-out parents did in the 70s. In addition to debts, feelings of guilt also gnaw at him. Last year, a Macedonian moonlighter had a fatal accident. Since then, his death has never let Fabiano go. How can he and his girlfriend Eva build a life together with their offspring under such difficult circumstances? Set against the imposing and oppressively quiet backdrop of the Ticino Alps, Aldo Gugolz’s film turns out to be an exciting tightrope walk between a criminal case and a sensitive portrait of a young farmer.

A double self-portrait in which a 90-year-old grandmother and her homosexual grandson confide in each other. With sincerity and humour, the film deconstructs gender stereotypes in depth and with subversive power and traces a family saga from bourgeois society with enchanting archive footage.

A playful search for today’s sentiments of home. The film takes us through real and imaginary worlds, confronts specific conditions of life with clichés and takes a delight in kitsch.

“Mais im Bundeshuus-le génie helvétique” (“Corn in Parliament”) is a vertiginous journey down the corridors of the Federal Parliament building in Bern. Constructed as a feature film, it follows the adventures of a parliamentary committee established to create a bill on genetic engineering (Gen-Lex). This political thriller reveals both sides of the coin, namely that of those who have invested, economic interests and of those who fear the negative effects of this revolutionary technology. Amusing, tender, and humane, all the while clearly illustrating the limits of the system, the film functions as a tale of universal power.

Max Frisch was the last great Swiss intellectual whose "voice" was widely heard and appreciated beyond the borders of his country: a character like none can be found today. Against the backdrop of the late 20th century, the film follows the story of Frisch.

Max Haufler hated acting, but while he left his mark on Swiss filmmaking of the 1950s with his character roles, success as a film director eluded him. He tried in vain in the last years of his life to film the novel "Der Stumme" by Otto F. Walter. Max Haufler fought for his dream - until it broke him.

The few thousand kilometers that separate Patagonia from the South Pole are a fascinating and hypnotic journey for explorers. Some even speak of an addiction, 'the Antarctic bite'. "La Marche de l’empereur" (2005) director Luc Jacquet has been experiencing it for 30 years. His new film is a visually striking adventure, offering us images beyond words, an ultimate tribute to a vanishing continent.

Sacrificed generation? At the beginning of 2019, young people are taking to the streets all over the world to warn of the climate crisis. In Switzerland too, young people are questioning the system. As their voices begin to resound, the arrival of the coronavirus in 2020 abruptly cuts their drive. The film intimately follows these activists in the euphoria of the first demonstrations as well as in the spleen of the health crisis. It asks us, young and old, about our relationship with this world that is collapsing, and how we can envisage a future together, across all generations.

A documentary investigation of the world of French agriculture today through various testimonials. A world that manages to resist the upheavals that it faces – economic, scientific, social – and which continues, for better or for worse, to maintain the link between generations.

At the beginning of the 19th century the discovery of the wide-open spaces of the United States and its incredible wildlife was key in the political development of the country. Intent on painting all the birds of America, John-James Audubon became a central figure of America’s national identity. But as these birds started disappearing with the dawn of the industrial era, so did the original American dream. In this “river movie” along the banks of the Mississippi, political, environmental and human rights issues are interwoven with the tales, myths and ghosts of these now extinct birds.

Waste on the shores, waste on the mountains. On ocean floors and deep down in the earth. The term “matter out of place” refers to objects in a place they originally do not belong to. And there are many such objects in the places Nikolaus Geyrhalter visits for this film. In his unique imagery consisting of minutely composed pictures, the director traces immense amounts of waste across our planet. From the mountain tops of Switzerland to the coasts of Greece and Albania, into an Austrian refuse incinerator and then to Nepal and the Maldives, and finally to the deserts of Nevada. "Matter Out of Place" is about human-made refuse, which is surrounding us all the time everywhere. On his journey, Geyrhalter illustrates the sheer endless struggle of people to gain control over the vast amounts of waste that we produce every single day. Collecting, shredding, burning, burying – a Sisyphean task, which ostensibly solves the global problem of rubbish that is stealthily growing.

«Ailo's Journey» tells the fight for the survival of a small wild reindeer, frail and vulnerable to the challenges that punctuate his first year. Its awakening to the wild world is a real tale in the heart of the grandiose landscapes of Lapland.

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” Einstein. All over the world bees have been dying for the past three years. Although the causes for this are still a mystery, one thing is already clear: there is more at stake than simply a few dead insects, and a great deal more than just honey. Seeking answers, the film embarks on a journey to meet with people whose lives depend on bees: to a Swiss beekeeper living on an Alp; to the gigantic almond plantations in California; to a bee brain researcher in Berlin; to a pollen trader in China; and to the killer bees in the Arizona desert. All report on how the bees are vanishing. The film tells us about their lives. And about ours.

«Ailo's Journey» tells the fight for the survival of a small wild reindeer, frail and vulnerable to the challenges that punctuate his first year. Its awakening to the wild world is a real tale in the heart of the grandiose landscapes of Lapland.

Instead of stressing the imagination of disaster, French actress Mélanie Laurent and activist Cyril Dion try to show scientific solutions to the ideological fallacies of modern industrialism and mass consumerism.

The film traces possible alliances with the fungal reign. As if in an uprising of spores, the encounters of the film explore the theme of renewal, and question what connects us when the world seems to be falling apart.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry transforms Jacques Dubochet’s life. Passing from the shadows to the light, he is solicited from all sides. What can he do with this voice, which is now being heard by everyone? How to define the struggles to be fought? How to become a “Nobel Citizen”, with the objective of assuming responsibility as a researcher and member of the human community? A speech by Greta Thunberg turns everything upside down.

Untouched natural landscapes of unique beauty can be found in the remote valleys of the Tibetan highlands. Filmmaker Marie Amiguet accompanies renowned nature photographer Vincent Munier and writer Sylvain Tesson on an adventurous journey in search of the snow leopard, a wild animal that very rarely reveals itself to mankind. The unusual journey of these two sympathetic oddballs becomes a contemplative ode to that sublime wilderness which, like the majestic snow cat, is in danger of disappearing. The score by Warren Ellis and Nick Cave compliments Amiguet's documentary, making it a sensory and decelerating experience.

No Man Is an Island travels across Europe, from the farmers working together in the Galline Felici cooperative in Sicily to the architects, craftspersons and elected representatives who collaborate in the Swiss Alps and in Austria. All are engaged in politics through their work and all believe in a common destiny. Is the local level the last possible place for a viable utopia?

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history; international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Sebastião's Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

Carolina, Bertha and Maxima share a common goal: they are leading today's fight against modern conquistadors. Whereas governments and corporations, trapped in a global race towards unlimited growth, need to get the cheapest raw materials, these three women tell us a story of tireless courage: how to keep fighting to protect nature when your life is at risk? «The Illusion of Abundance» is not only a film about those who pay the high price of 'development' and 'progress', it is above all a film about the globalization of their environmental resistance and their conviction to hunt down misbehaving transnational corporations, wherever they hide.

A powerful man, who is also the former prime minister of Georgia, has developed an exquisite hobby. He collects century old trees along Georgia’s coastline. He commissions his men to uproot them and bring them to his private garden. Some of these trees are as tall as 15-floor-buildings. And in order to transplant a tree of such dimensions some other trees are chopped down, electric cables are shifted and new roads are paved through mandarin plantations. The film moves the concept of uprooting from its metaphorical meaning into an oppressive, tangible and yet surreal reality.

In 1976 a massive explosion at chemicals factory Icmesa in the Italian Seveso had devastating consequences for neighbouring communities and their environment. Icmesa’s parent company was Givaudan, which in turn belonged to Hoffman La Roche, based in Basel. Following the accident, Icmesa’s technical director Jorg Sambeth was charged with failing to keep adequate security measures. During his investigations into the true cause and background to the catastrophe, Sambeth stumbled upon facts that were damaging to those who were paying his lawyers. Yet he is sentenced to five years in prison. How should he take up his grievances with this conglomerate of companies?

Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old student in Sweden, started a school strike for the climate as her question for adults was, if you don’t care about my future on earth, why should I care about my future in school? Within months, her strike evolved into a global movement as the quiet teenage girl on the autism spectrum becomes a world-famous activist.

16-year-old Bella and Vipulan are part of a generation convinced its very future is in danger. Between climate change and the 6th mass extinction of wildlife, their world could well be inhabitable 50 years from now. They have sounded the alarm over and over, but nothing has really changed. So they've decided to tackle the root of the problem: our relationship with the living world. Over the course of an extraordinary journey, they come to realize just how deeply humans are tied to all other living species. And that by saving them... we're also saving ourselves. Humans thought they could distance themselves from nature, but humans are part and parcel of nature. For man is, after all, an Animal.

Two places on the edges of the earth are making headlines due to climate change: Thule in Greenland, because the ice there is melting more and more, and Tuvalu, because this island state in the Pacific is one of the first countries to threaten to sink into the rising sea. While for us the warming of the planet takes place almost exclusively in the media, for the people of Thule and Tuvalu it changes their entire existence. The film describes how they have to say goodbye to their traditional way of life and head for an unknown future.

A co-operative that was founded in 1993 in Ticino (the Alpine southernmost Canton of Switzerland) by Ulrich Stamani and 12 other people continues to prosper as a small farm and eco-resort thanks to the help and support of people like Katharina Luthi, a skilled farmer. Over the course of a year the co-operative has to readjust itself to the needs of its members and try to find new younger people to progress the simple life it preserves.

Wild Plants are plants that seed themselves on fallow land, take possession of seemingly uninhabitable terrain and create new habitats. But wild plants are also people who create their own utopias and become impulse generators for others. People live in many scattered places around the world and projects are growing in which botanical and biographical uncontrolled growth are combined.

In a world of one-way traffic, where the northern countries are exporting their economic and political model worldwide, one country in Latin America has undertaken a profound reform of these models to invent a new type of governance, both pragmatic and humanistic. The country in question is Ecuador. Rafael Correa, an established economist, who came to politics as a man on a mission, was elected President in 2006. Since coming to power, he has transformed a country with archaic structures into a social, independent, ecological and participative democracy. He has given Ecuadorians genuine reason to believe that the rigid structures of the past were no longer inevitable, that ordinary citizens had their word to say, and that, at long last, their voices would be heard. This film is intended for everyone, from rich and emerging countries alike. It suggests concrete perspectives to a new way of living the phenomenon of globalization. It shows that political, ecological and economic alternatives do exist. This film is not a film about Ecuador; rather, is about a political project, where utopia became reality. It is a film of ideas and reflections, suggesting solutions to the current crises besetting the globe. It proposes a real debate on the future of our society

At a time when audiences are filling up the cinemas to see the feature adaptation of Bruno Manser's Life in the Jungle, Christof Kühn's successful documentary BRUNO MANSER - LAKI PENAN from 2007, now digitialized for online streaming, is the perfect choice. With original film and sound recordings by Manser and interviews with his companions in the Borneo jungle, this documentary provides an authentic insight into the adventurous life of the Swiss environmental activist.

A former resistance fighter who is elected president of Uruguay and donates almost 90 percent of his salary to social projects: Pepe Mujica, one of Latin America's most charismatic personalities, has become known as "the poorest president in the world". He has always remained true to his ideals, having spent many years in prison for political reasons. His modest lifestyle - he lives in a small finca instead of a government palace - and his unconventional appearance underpin his credibility with young and old. Pepe Mujica represents his concerns with humour, intellect and passion, and his political commitment to a more just society attracts international attention and encouragement. Filmmaker Heidi Specogna and her cameraman Rainer Hoffmann often visited Pepe Mujica and his wife Lucía Topolansky and accompanied them with their cameras. This is how the portrait of an extraordinary person was created, who, at almost 80 years of age, has retained his courage, his wit, his humanity and his strong hope for change. "Pepe Mujica - el presidente" is an optimistic and moving film that inspires courage.

At the far end of Alaska, filmmaker Roman Droux fulfils a dream and travels to the land of grizzly bears together with bear researcher David Bittner. The two adventurers set off for the realm of the bears to a place where there is no trace of human civilization. Surrounded by crystal-clear torrents, they experience the care of a mother bear and impressive battles of giant male bears. Roman Droux brings pictures of breathtaking beauty to the big screen. A lively nature film for the whole family.

A man wanders through the 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the stricken nuclear reactors at Fukushima. The cherry trees are in bloom and the natural surroundings make an idyllic impression. Radiation is invisible, yet a gaping emptiness looms where the tsunami engulfed streets and houses. The man is wearing normal clothing, just like the people still toughing it out here, for the time being at least. He occa- sionally encounters white "ghosts" in protective clothing, performing strange tasks. As in Tarkovsky’s STALKER, the zone in Fujiwara Toshi’s NO MAN’S ZONE is both a place and a mental state. A gradual disintegration began long before the destruction and devastation, a process defied for the most part by the old people our "Stalker" encounters. A voice accom- panies the filmmaker’s wanderings, that of Armenian-Canadian actress Arsinée Khanjian, a voice from a place of exile, unfamiliar and sympathetic. NO MAN’S ZONE is a complex reflection on the relationship between images and fears, on being addicted to the apocalypse, on the ravaged relationship between man and nature. For the zone to be decontam- inated and returned to the people, nature itself will have to undergo an amputation.

The Chinese make everything and the Malagasy fix everything. The people of Madagascar pride themselves on producing things out of nothing: tires transformed into shoes, oil lamps made out of light bulbs, wheelbarrows fashioned from scrap metal. You see ingenuity, not underdevelopment, in their practices. A return to a conservationist lifestyle that encourages recycling, fraternity and self-reliance is entirely of the moment and makes perfect sense in the midst of a global economic crisis. Will the world pay attention? Filmmaker Nantenaina Lova venerates the family business, the clever artisan, the resourceful craftsman and those who possess the ability to create using everyday objects. The Malagasy Way is a poetic, proverb-packed lesson in creativity and resistance that offers fresh logic on how to live. By cultivating lifes treasuressharing, ancestral knowledge, a good soul and the sweetness in bitternessthe Malagasy hope to teach the Western superpowers a thing or two.

Three players in the free market take on ethical responsibility for their actions and the following generations: they engage in sustainable production. At various stages, the film charts the careers of successful entrepreneurs who operate locally, nationally and internationally and manage to combine both the market and morality. The film examines the question of what a neo-liberal economic model could look like and presents the positions of three pioneers, who, day in and day out, balance out fair working conditions, biological production and the cost pressures of the free economy. The film presents a motivating approach to solving a situation which often appears hopeless. It emphasizes ethics and sustainability as factors for success.

Once amongst avid admirers of nuclear plants and their managers, Aunt Kuniko and her community are on the verge of disintegration in the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe. Director Kyoko Miyake, having lived outside of Japan for more than a decade, revisits Fukushima.

For the first time in the history of mankind, we are forced to seriously consider the future of the Earth, and to do so in a global context. We need new energy concepts: energy production, distribution and consumption must be fundamentally redefined and organized. Despite all the challenges, there are also unique opportunities in this transformation process. How do we tackle the future? Which concepts are promising? Where do we stand?

The mountain massif of Cutucú in the south of the Amazon region in Ecuador was a kind of defense against the environmental destruction for the native population but in the same time an obstacle. The people had no access to the modern world outside. The road through the Cutucú now allows mobility in order to exploit the fossil resurces but it grants the natives a way to reach the so called civilized world. The process happens in an unspectacular way. Where progress starts it cannot be stopped anymore: Escavating, digging, shovelling, grubbing, selling and buying: everyday madness. Excerpts from the film «Shuar, People of the Sacred Waterfalls» (1986) recall us, how in the traditional culture of the Shuar nature was an integrated part of life and mobility was achieved in the hallucinogenic ecstasy with no bounds. Today the natives are transporting wooden boards with horses to civilization. Wood is the fastest business, other products must first be created. Now the jungle disappears in everyday madness.

Drawing inspiration from his personal encounter with the Italian refugee child Giovanna during World War II, Markus Imhoof tells how refugees and migrants are treated today: on the Mediterranean Sea, in Italy and in Switzerland.

«Navalny» depicts in a harrowing as well as riveting way the poisoning and attempted murder of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and «public enemy No.1» of Vladimir Putin. Suspenseful and intimately developed like a thriller, «Navalny» is an engaging documentary that is also an exploration of the person Alexei Navalny - a portrait of a leader who wants reform and will not let anything deter him from his mission. Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.

«October 2019: an unexpected revolution, a social turmoil. A million and a half persons demonstrated in the streets of Santiago demanding more democracy, a better life, a better education and health system and a new Constitution. Chile had recovered its memory. What I had been waiting for since my student struggles in 1973 had finally become reality.» Patricio Guzmán

Oscar, not quite a child anymore, scavenges for scrap metal for his father. He spends his life in improvised landfills among what remains of leftovers. Worlds apart, yet close-by, there is Stanley. He tidies the church in exchange for a monetised hospitality, picks fruits, herds sheep: anything that keep his foreign body busy. Oscar, the young Sicilian, and Stanley the Nigerian don’t seem to have much in common. Except for the feeling of being thrown into the world, to suffer the same refusal, the same overwhelming wave of choices imposed on them by others.

Mahmoud and Fawzi have been living in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan. Though they both have no sense of what the future holds for them, they focus their energy together on their first love: soccer. Despite the dire circumstances in the camp, they practice day in and day out, believing firmly that playing professionally is their ticket to freedom. When Aspire Academy, one of the world’s leading sports academies, arrives to pick players for an international tournament in Doha, they quickly identify Mahmoud as a talent and fly him there, while Fawzi is left behind due to a technicality. Mahmoud is boarding a plane for the first time and is taking in the experience, while Fawzi is facing the difficult reality in Zaatari. Unexpectedly, the Aspire coaches decide to fly Fawzi in to join his team. The two best friends train and compete in the most important soccer matches of their lives, while their families in Zaatari watch via satellite. After the final match, they speak at a press conference. On behalf of the displaced people of Syria, they make clear that people need an opportunity, not pity. Three years later they grew to young men. They are still stuck in Zaatari, still troubled by fears of an insecure future.

In a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, emerges India's only newspaper run by Dalit women. Armed with smartphones, Chief Reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions, be it on the frontlines of India's biggest issues or within the confines of their homes, redefining what it means to be powerful.

Bombs, war, angry bearded men, shrouded sobbing women, shattered cities: Iraq, as seen through the eyes of the western media these days. These images are juxtaposed with those from the fifties and seventies: films with frivolous music, unveiled women who study; elegantly dressed men in Bagdad, a modern city. How did it come to this? Film director Samir tells the story of his globalised middle-class Iraqi family, scattered between Auckland, Moscow, Paris, London and Buffalo, New York.

In 1944, four-year-old Argyris Sfountouris survived a brutal massacre committed by the German occupying forces, in which he lost his parents and thirty more relatives. The Greek orphan was sent to the Pestalozzi Children’s Village in Trogen, Switzerland and obtained a Ph.D in maths and astrophysics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Now a 66-year-old man of winning charm and melancholy cheerfulness, Argyris has forever been tackling the horror he had to go through as a little boy. He has not tried to come to terms with it emotionally. Rather, he has tried to learn to live with it and to do his utmost to prevent it from happening again. An intimate, reflective film about the quest for peace and the almost insurmountable difficulties linked to true reconciliation – an open-ended journey.

MAIDAN chronicles the civil uprising against the regime of president Yanukovych that took place in Kiev (Ukraine) in the winter of 2013/14. The film follows the progress of the revolution: from peaceful rallies, half a million strong, in the Maidan square, to the bloody street battles between protestors and riot police. MAIDAN is a portrait of an awakening nation, rediscovering its identity.

FOR SAMA is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice – whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much. The Times noted: «One of the most important films you will ever see in your life.»

A film about people who have fought for more freedom and justice – and have had to pay dearly for it. The two women and two men from Tibet, Congo, Chile, and Turkey now live in Switzerland. In their native countries they were badly tortured for their human rights efforts. Nevertheless, they have not lost their belief in a better world.

They have traveled far - by plane, train, bus or boat. Now they find themselves in the integration class of teacher Christian Zingg in Basel, where young people from all over the world get to know the language and culture of our country within two years. Anna Thommen's documentary film, which has won numerous awards at numerous festivals, opens up a view into a world that is hardly known. The director skilfully interweaves various stories, observed with great sensitivity.

More than 500 000 Italians live and work in Switzerland. They are considered a „problem“. An over-employed economy needs their labour – a small nation of distinct peculiarity perceives them as foreign objects. They live beyond the barrier of a different language. Discussed as a problem, they remain unknown as human beings.

For three years, Gianfranco Rosi filmed in the respective border areas of the countries Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan and Lebanon, filming people who are affected and traumatized by the wars in the region on alternating sides. His interest is always in the subtle interplay of everydayness, beauty and catastrophe.

Filmmaker and activist Amandine Gay was listed under ‘X’ as a child in France, abandoned by her mother to grow up in a white family. ‘A Story of One’s Own’ pass the mic to five people who, like herself, carry in themselves the experience of being adopted. Separated not only from their unknown biological parents and countries of birth but also from the story about themselves.

Situated some 200km off Italy's southern coast, Lampedusa has hit world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants hoping to make a new life in Europe. Rosi spent months living on the Mediterranean island, capturing its history, culture and the current everyday reality of its 6,000-strong local population as hundreds of migrants land on its shores on a weekly basis. The resulting documentary focuses on 12-year-old Samuele, a local boy who loves to hunt with his slingshot and spend time on land even though he hails from a culture steeped in the sea.

Lea Tsemel, a Jewish-Israeli lawyer, defends Palestinians: from feminists to fundamentalists, from nonviolent demonstrators to armed militants. As far as most Israelis are concerned, she defends the indefensible. As far as Palestinians are concerned, she’s more than an attorney, she’s an ally. «Advocate» follows Tsemel in real time, including the trial of a 13-year-old boy — her youngest client to date.

Amal is 14 years old when she ends up on Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, after the death of her boyfriend in the Port Said Stadium riot. During the protests, she is beaten by police and dragged across the square by her hair. This coming-of-age film follows her over the years after the revolution. As the film cuts between the unfolding current events and Amal’s rapidly changing life and appearance, we see her searching for her own identity in a country in transition. Amal is fiery and fearless, sinking her teeth into the protests and constantly lecturing her mother, who works as a judge. A girl among men, she also has to fight for respect and the right to take part, both in the street and in the rest of her life. In Egypt, even for a young woman like Amal-her name means "hope"-the choices open to her for her future are limited.

Beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker Anders Østergaard, brings us close to Burma’s video journalists who insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country despite risking torture and life in jail. Armed with small handycams they make their undercover reportages, smuggle the material out of the country, and broadcast back into Burma via satellite or offered as free usage for international media.

Told entirely in the words of James Baldwin, through both personal appearances and the text of his final unfinished book project, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO touches on the lives and assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Medgar Evers to bring powerful clarity to how the image and reality of Blacks in America today is fabricated and enforced.

This portrayal of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India, moves through the corridors and bowels of the enormously disorienting structure—taking the viewer on a journey of dehumanizing physical labor and intense hardship.

After the fall of the military dictatorship in 1983, successive democratic governments launched a series of reforms purporting to turn Argentina into the world's most liberal and prosperous economy. Less than twenty years later, the Argentinians have lost literally everything: major national companies have been sold well below value to foreign corporations; the proceeds of privatizations have been diverted into the pockets of corrupt officials; revised labour laws have taken away all rights from employees; in a country that is traditionally an important exporter of foodstuffs, malnutrition is widespread; millions of people are unemployed and sinking into poverty; and their savings have disappeared in a final banking collapse. The film highlights numerous political, financial, social and judicial aspects that mark out Argentina's road to ruin.

In 2001, Fahed arrived in the UK, his head full of dreams. In 2018, facing a mid-life crisis, he now has a decision to make. Will he continue to buckle down, working 50 hours between the kebab shop and the factory, or will he return to Algeria, a country he fled in the hope of making a better life for himself?

No Apologies describes the state of physical and mental siege of black people living in precarious conditions in Lausanne. Confronted with the need to protect anonymity and the impossibility of filming in the street, No Apologies was conceived in a way that allows its characters to express themselves freely. Masked or barefaced, they bear witness to their personal journey, their struggle for everyday survival and police brutality. Thus questioning their place in a Swiss society that considers them as pariahs. The film is a collective project resulting from an alliance between the people directly affected by these issues and movie professionals. Given the urgency of the situation, the documentary was produced in very little time, in guerrilla mode without the constraints of institutional funding.

This Charlie Hebdo staffer is being filmed since 2011, when the young Moroccan journalist came to France as she couldn't work in her own country anymore. We follow Zineb El Rhazoui before, during and after the attack on the satire magazine in Paris. From being a censored journalist she becomes the most protected woman of Europe. Never afraid, but then she falls in love and gets pregnant. What now?

The entire world praised the military and Aung San Suu Kyi, when power was passed on to the democracy icon after 50 years of military dictatorship. One year later she defended an ethnic cleansing and had isolated herself from the public. This film tells you why. It’s the story of how power struggles unfold and how political enemies can end up being closer than the ones they claim to fight for: the people.

Bethlehem is a neighbourhood in the city of Bern where immigrants from over 30 nations have settled. At the centre of this film is the junior team of the Bethlehem Football Club. In this team, the majority are immigrants between 15 and 16 years old. The film also portrays - along with football - their everyday lives at school, vocational training and leisure time. It questions the protagonists about their self-image, their dreams, worries and fears, asks them about what connects them and what divides them, about what it’s like to be a foreigner in their former homeland and how they get along in another foreign environment.

A Roma boy living in Sweden dreams of building a spaceship to escape the reality of his family's pending asylum request, and the mysterious coma-like illness that has befallen his siblings.

In 2015, after Hassan Fazili’s documentary Peace aired on Afghan national television, the Taliban assassinated the film’s main subject and put a price on Hassan’s head. Hassan looked at his wife and his daughters, and he knew they had to flee their home. Over the course of their multi-year saga in search of safety, the family grasped onto the only means they had to assert control over their situation: their camera-phones. Midnight Traveler is a gripping vérité story made by a family on the run. Their unique access and artistic vision provide an intimate portrait of a loving family and the myriad fellow travelers they meet on their odyssey.

As anger and resentment grow in the face of social inequalities, many citizens-led protests are being repressed with an ever-increasing violence. In this documentary, David Dufresne gathers a panel of citizens to question, exchange and confront their views on the social order and the legitimacy of the use of force by the State.

VOLUNTEER is a film about the grassroots movement of ordinary Swiss citizens who set out to help thousands of refugees stranded in Greece. In rich and safe Switzerland, citizens from different backgrounds leave their orderly lives behind to support people in need. There is a Swiss farmer and his wife who raise cows in the Alps, a captain in the Swiss army, a pensioner who resides on the lakeside, and a successful comedian and entertainer. These volunteers embark on an adventure that will change their lives forever.

In the summer of 2015, one million refugees seek sanctuary in Europe. 40,000 reach Switzerland. Andreas Glarner, mayor of the wealthiest municipality in Aargau, wants to set an example and refuses to accommodate ten refugees in his village. Johanna Gündel, student and daughter of a local vegetable farmer, fights this policy with like-minded villagers. The film tells the story of Switzerland in times of the so-called refugee crisis.

Mali - Algeria - Libya - Italy. Issa’s escape from West Africa to the European mainland lasted ten years. Everything was supposed to be better here. But when he arrived in Rome, the only thing waiting for the young man was a life of homelessness and unemployment – which meant no money to send home. Drissa and Sekou share a similar fate, waiting in Italian asylum centres for a residence permit. Then there’s Bubu, who, forced to move from job to job, is unable to settle down. And lastly comes Alassane, who lives without identity papers in a state of constant uncertainty in a refugee camp near Rome. They all have one thing in common: after a gruelling odyssey, none of them has found the Italy they were hoping for when they arrived. Disillusioned, they find themselves in a vacuum of waiting, reflecting on the time they live in and the time that lies ahead.

From Camera Obscura and the Lumieres Brothers all the way to Youtube and the world of social media, the film chronicles how we went from capturing the image of a backyard to a multi-billion- euro content industry in just 200 years. With an exclusive use of archival and found footage, the film uses the very medium it examines, in a self-reflective yet hilarious montage. Filmmakers Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck once again turn their cameras directly on society, this time to explore, explain and expose how our unchecked obsession with image has grown to change our human behavior.

Nowadays, the wish to have children ranges between legitimate desires, primary instincts, social pressures and lifestyle choices. With a great deal of expert knowledge and impressive pictures, the film takes a candid look at reproductive medicine and its industry, as well as into the test tube. The point is, however, not to praise or stigmatise reproductive medicine. Nevertheless, the social, political and, above all, ethical implications are palpable at all times. A present-day science fiction.

The film traces possible alliances with the fungal reign. As if in an uprising of spores, the encounters of the film explore the theme of renewal, and question what connects us when the world seems to be falling apart.

Five centuries ago, the anatomist Andreas Vesalius first opened up the body to the scientific world. Today, "De Humani Corporis Frabica" opens up the body to the cinema. We discover that human flesh is an unheard-of landscape that only exists thanks to the attention of others. Hospitals, places of care and suffering, are laboratories that connect all the bodies of the world. "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" combines the technical with the human gaze, opening up a strange, sometimes dizzying space. Closing your eyes if necessary is expressly permitted.

This portrayal of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India, moves through the corridors and bowels of the enormously disorienting structure—taking the viewer on a journey of dehumanizing physical labor and intense hardship.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is arguably the world's most reknowned expert on the process of dying. With Kübler Ross' full collaboration, Haupt's film looks back on her life and career, from her earliest days as a triplet in 1920s Zurich, to her fame as an international lecturer and writer based in the US. Now in her twilight years, Kübler-Ross is bedbound in Arizona, and awaiting death herself. A truly fascinating film that enables us to re-evaluate our own emotions regarding life's greatest certainty, death. With the addition of archive film and interviews with Kübler-Ross' sisters and close colleagues, Haupt builds up a rich picture of a remarkable woman who has done so much to make death less of a taboo.

For the first time in the history of mankind, we are forced to seriously consider the future of the Earth, and to do so in a global context. We need new energy concepts: energy production, distribution and consumption must be fundamentally redefined and organized. Despite all the challenges, there are also unique opportunities in this transformation process. How do we tackle the future? Which concepts are promising? Where do we stand?

The experiment is a journey through the remotest time and on the smallest scale that we can imagine: an exploration of matter about one millionth of a second following the Big Bang that generated our universe. As the new experiment at CERN proceeds in its exploration of the mysterious energy that animates the universe, scientists and artists guide us towards the shadow line where science and art, in different ways, pursue truth and beauty. Some of these men and women believe in god, while others believe only in experiment and doubt. But in their search for truth they are all alert to an elusive sixth – or seventh – sense… the sense of beauty.

Ghana is considered a model country in West Africa - democratic, open, ambitious. Ghana's government is proud and likes to refer to good governance: to the best rule of law in West Africa and above all to stable economic growth - despite the global financial crisis. The government is determined to achieve faster socio-economic development, especially by expanding the industrial sector. Ebenezer Mireku comes from a Ghanaian jungle village. He made some detours to obtain his doctorate at the University of St. Gallen in 1988 and then returned to his home country to apply the knowledge he had acquired as an entrepreneur. For several years he has been passionately fighting for the realisation of his major project: the construction of a new section of the Ghanaian railway. The railway line is intended to stimulate the development of the entire region. His future-oriented, gigantic railway project was at the centre of the film project and is the leitmotif of Bruno Moll's film Take Off. The film narrative follows Ebenezer Mirekus' biography and experiences with the railway project, documenting encounters with Ghanaians. Questions about development, growth and progress are of specific interest.

In 1943, chemist Albert Hofmann stumbles upon a previously unknown substance in his Basel research laboratory: LSD - the "atomic bomb of the mind". He recognizes the enormous potential of this new substance, which will change the world. Hippies, secret services and the military experiment with it. Doctors argue about the usability of LSD as a cure. The documentary is a cinematic trip through six decades and tells the story of a drug that has lost none of its mystery to this day.

Peter Mettler's film essay explores our perceptions and mental representations of time. This visual reflection on the origins, the conditions and the effects of our existence aims to give a vivid impression of how we experience our present moment and of how each of us impacts the future.

At the beginning of the 19th century the discovery of the wide-open spaces of the United States and its incredible wildlife was key in the political development of the country. Intent on painting all the birds of America, John-James Audubon became a central figure of America’s national identity. But as these birds started disappearing with the dawn of the industrial era, so did the original American dream. In this “river movie” along the banks of the Mississippi, political, environmental and human rights issues are interwoven with the tales, myths and ghosts of these now extinct birds.

1924. Director and aviation pioneer Walter Mittelholzer takes us on a flight from Zurich to Teheran. A daring journey of 6,000 km and 40 hours of flying, interspersed with numerous stopovers. The film reveals fascinating images of an Orient long since gone, and the first aerial images of ancient Persia that went around the world. The journal of an early air travel adventure!

At the far end of Alaska, filmmaker Roman Droux fulfils a dream and travels to the land of grizzly bears together with bear researcher David Bittner. The two adventurers set off for the realm of the bears to a place where there is no trace of human civilization. Surrounded by crystal-clear torrents, they experience the care of a mother bear and impressive battles of giant male bears. Roman Droux brings pictures of breathtaking beauty to the big screen. A lively nature film for the whole family.

An hallucinatory tale of a filmmaker’s journey to Canada’s Arctic in search of the Northern Lights – an encounter with the gulf between the knowable and the ineffable, between humankind’s need to capture and control Nature, and Nature’s refusal to be caught… aurora borealis, the lights with no bodies pouring colours from the sky… more special than any special effect…

The extraordinary adventure of the young members of the Piedmont Speleological Group who, having already explored all the caves of Northern Italy, changed course in August 1961 and went South to explore other caves unknown to man.

A Roma boy living in Sweden dreams of building a spaceship to escape the reality of his family's pending asylum request, and the mysterious coma-like illness that has befallen his siblings.

Is it possible to talk with animals? The filmmaker explores the world of animal communication. She wants to understand her excited dog Bina. On her international journey she meets two horse teachers, an animal communicator, a biologist, an animal therapist and the founder of The Trust Technique. Salome discovers astonishing possibilities of animal communication, whether it's with her dog Bina, other dogs, horses, cats, dolphins, or a goat.

A man wanders through the 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the stricken nuclear reactors at Fukushima. The cherry trees are in bloom and the natural surroundings make an idyllic impression. Radiation is invisible, yet a gaping emptiness looms where the tsunami engulfed streets and houses. The man is wearing normal clothing, just like the people still toughing it out here, for the time being at least. He occa- sionally encounters white "ghosts" in protective clothing, performing strange tasks. As in Tarkovsky’s STALKER, the zone in Fujiwara Toshi’s NO MAN’S ZONE is both a place and a mental state. A gradual disintegration began long before the destruction and devastation, a process defied for the most part by the old people our "Stalker" encounters. A voice accom- panies the filmmaker’s wanderings, that of Armenian-Canadian actress Arsinée Khanjian, a voice from a place of exile, unfamiliar and sympathetic. NO MAN’S ZONE is a complex reflection on the relationship between images and fears, on being addicted to the apocalypse, on the ravaged relationship between man and nature. For the zone to be decontam- inated and returned to the people, nature itself will have to undergo an amputation.

The film begins with a volcanic eruption that stranded the director, Pauline Julier, in a foreign city, among strangers. In turns, these strangers evoke legends about the formation of the continents, the blooming of the tectonic plates or the explosion of ash that provoked summers without sun.

The Future Circular Collider is the machine of the future. Thanks to it, we will finally be able to go back in time to the origin of our universe. But which way do we go to set up the largest scientific instrument of all time? Between metaphysics and underground tunnels, a story of the preparations or how men are ready to move mountains for more knowledge.

CITIZENFOUR is a real life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s encounters with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

CITIZENFOUR is a real life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s encounters with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

How much of your own life are you willing to risk? Laura Poitras, Academy Award winning director of CITIZENFOUR, returns with her most personal and intimate film to date. Filmed over six years, RISK is a complex and volatile character study that collides with a high stakes election year and its controversial aftermath. Cornered in a tiny building for half a decade, Julian Assange is undeterred even as the legal jeopardy he faces threatens to undermine the organization he leads and fracture the movement he inspired. Capturing this story with unprecedented access, Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle. In a new world order where a single keystroke can alter history, Risk is a portrait of power, betrayal, truth, and sacrifice.

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France and captures the oldest known pictorial creations of humanity

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” Einstein. All over the world bees have been dying for the past three years. Although the causes for this are still a mystery, one thing is already clear: there is more at stake than simply a few dead insects, and a great deal more than just honey. Seeking answers, the film embarks on a journey to meet with people whose lives depend on bees: to a Swiss beekeeper living on an Alp; to the gigantic almond plantations in California; to a bee brain researcher in Berlin; to a pollen trader in China; and to the killer bees in the Arizona desert. All report on how the bees are vanishing. The film tells us about their lives. And about ours.

In Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life, a group of people, recently deceased, arrives at the outskirts of heaven. There they spend a week deciding which of all the memories from their lives they most want to spend eternity in, and heavenly counselors help them in the process. The dead souls help each other come to terms with what was most important to them while they were alive. Shot in a realistic yet slightly dreamy light, this touching and humanistic look at life and death carefully avoids being overly sentimental: a masterpiece.

Through her child’s eyes, Patpro will go through three periods of the history of her indigenous people, in the heart of the Brazilian forest. Tirelessly persecuted, but guided by their ancestral rites, their love of nature and their fight to preserve their freedom, the Krahô never stop inventing new forms of resistance.

Nominated for an Oscar in the category "Best Documentary Film": The life of Olfa, a Tunisian woman and mother of 4 daughters, oscillates between light and shadow. One day, her two eldest daughters disappear. To fill their absence, director Kaouther Ben Hania calls upon professional actors and sets up an extraordinary film mechanism to unveil the story of Olfa and her daughters. An intimate journey full of hope, rebellion, violence, intergenerational transmission and sisterhood, which will question the very foundation of our societies.

Young brothers Max and Leo dream of going to Disneyland, but having just emigrated from Mexico to the USA they first have to settle in their new homeland. And they have to stick to the seven rules their mother has set down for them.

The extraordinary adventure of the young members of the Piedmont Speleological Group who, having already explored all the caves of Northern Italy, changed course in August 1961 and went South to explore other caves unknown to man.

A film between fiction and reality, highlighting questions about group dynamics and established hierarchies. A group of people meet for their high school reunion 20 years later. One of them talks about her being bullied and outcast and soon the former classmates fall back to the roles they used to have back in school. But this is just half of the film.

Inside the Argentinian highlands, a native llama herder follows the traces of an invisible puma who is killing his livestock. Through his search, a mystical exchange is revealed between him, his ancestors and the changing form of the puma.

Chris Marker, filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. Sans Soleil is his mind-bending free-form travelogue that journeys from Africa to Japan.

Croatia, January 1992. In the midst of the Yugoslav Wars, Chris, a young Swiss journalist is found dead in mysterious circumstances. He was wearing the uniform of an international mercenary group. Anja Kofmel was his cousin. As a little girl, she used to admire this handsome young man; now a grown-up woman, she decides to investigate his story, trying to understand what really was the involvement of Chris in the conflict

Fatimetu is born to a Sahrawi family in a Saharan refugee camp in Algeria and later sent to live with foster parents in Spain. After the death of her mother she returns to the camp. She has been absent for sixteen years. Her brother now expects her to stay and look after her sister Hayat, who has difficulty walking. Fatimetu, who unlike the other women can drive a car, finds work transporting animals, meat and bread from one administrative district to another. In time, the Sahrawi people become accustomed to the woman who tears about the desert without a hijab in her beaten up jeep. But Fatimetu is torn between life in the desert and her memories of her family and friends in Spain. The Sahrawi are a Moorish ethnic group in Algeria that is still waiting for the referendum that will define their status under international law. Told in concentrated, poetic images, Pedro Pérez Rosado’s film does not only give us the story of two reunited sisters or the clash of two different cultures; he also allows his Saharan protagonists to describe in their own words their political and social predicament.

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, Rene Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.

In a traditional tribal society in the South Pacific, a young girl, Wawa, falls in love with her chief’s grandson, Dain. When an intertribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, refusing her arranged fate. They must choose between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for individual freedom.

It might take two viewings to grasp fully what Fernando Pérez is doing in "Suite Habana," an elusive but intermittently beautiful tone poem on film. There is virtually no dialogue. There are no story lines that build to a climax, no documentary-style voice-overs. There are just snippets from a day in Havana, so disjointed and seemingly random that it takes a while to realize that Mr. Pérez is focusing on 10 specific individuals, tracking them through 24 hours in their painfully ordinary lives.

Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock 'n' roller, Rodriguez. The film won Best Documentary at the 85th Academy Awards.

Orhan Pamuk - Turkey's Nobel laureate for Literature - opens a museum in Istanbul. A museum that's a fiction: its objects trace a tale of doomed love in 1970's Istanbul. The film takes a tour of the objects as the starting point for a trip through love stories, landscapes and the chemistry of the city."Like many people, when I first visited Istanbul, I read Orhan Pamuk. From the very start, my view of the city was through the prism of his imagination. And I knew that Orhan had imagined a place called The Museum of Innocence' and in 2008 had published a big novel of that name. What I didn't know was that, two months after my first visit to Istanbul in 2012, Orhan would open the doors to the real Museum of Innocence. A real, 5-storey museum of real objects - the debris and treasure of a tragic love affair from 30 years ago. A museum which immediately became established as part of Istanbul's real cultural itinerary: the Bosphorus Cruise, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar, Museum of Innocence." [Grant Gee]

"NOT ME - A Journey with Not Vital" takes us on an intriguing foray into the eventful life and creative artistic expressions of contemporary Swiss artist Not Vital. This film essay sheds light on the work of the internationally renowned Grisons artist who for a long time remained the "well-known unknown" inside his home country. Director Pascal Hofmann traces the driving force of this restless cosmopolitan, and establishes a dialogue between the motifs in Vital's work, his childhood dreams, and the influences of his most important places of stay such as Beijing, Patagonia, Niger, "his" village of Sent in the Grisons, and New York. The film opens up visually stunning insights into Vital's perception of reality and its artistic transformation. From beginning to end, this film tells the author's enraptured exploration of the longings of an artist who came from the mountains.

Tunisia, before the revolution. A man on a motorbike, razor blade in hand, prowls the streets of Tunis slashing women's buttocks. They call him The Challat, aka "The Blade", and the mere mention of his name provokes fascination and terror. Is he a lone criminal, an urban legend, or could he be the creation of a political group or religious fanatics? 10 years later, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, a stubborn young female director sets out on an investigation to unravel the mystery and discover the true Challat of Tunis.

Before entering a prestigious American university, Gabriel Buchmann decided to travel the world for one year, his backpack full of dreams. After ten months on the road, he arrived in Kenya determined to discover the African continent. Until he reached the top of Mount Mulanje, Malawi, his last destination.

Félicité is a proud and independent woman who works as a singer in a bar in Kinshasa. Whenever she goes on stage, she appears to leave the world and her everyday worries behind. Her audiences are quickly infected by the rhythm of her music and her powerful, melancholy melodies. But then one day Félicité’s son has a terrible accident. Whilst he is in hospital she desperately tries to raise the money needed for his operation. A breathless tour through the impoverished streets and the wealthier districts of the Congolese capital ensues. One of the bar’s regulars is a man named Tabu who has been known to get carried away in every sense of the term. Tabu offers to help Félicité. Reluctantly, she accepts. After his spell in hospital, Félicité’s son has a hard time picking up his old life, but it is lady’s man Tabu of all people who manages to coax him out of his shell. Félicité’s sparsely furnished flat with its permanently defunct fridge becomes a mini utopia in a country that holds no hope for most of its population. The trio forms an eccentric community thrown together by fate, each of whom is free to go their separate ways together.

Set wholly in a secondary school in a working-class district of Paris, where many inhabitants are foreign-born, the film follows a year in the life of a young teacher, François Marin, and the 25 teenage pupils to whom he teaches French for an hour each day. Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he spends a year with his racially mixed students walking the narrow line between maintaining discipline and gaining co-operation. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, master French director Laurent Cantet's The Class is a "fresh piece of humanist, realist, optimist cinema" (The Guardian).

Vicente is a young, reckless loner who comes back to his parents’ beach house after a year studying in LA. One of those random nights of downing shots and chasing girls changes his life forever when Vicente becomes the prime suspect in a hit-and-run that kills a local fisherman. Vicente was wasted. His memories are a blur. Yes, he was in the car, but he swears he wasn’t driving. And what’s worse, the guy he remembers being behind the wheel is the son of a powerful politician. A tangled web of lies engulfs the truth, crushing out a social scandal before it can begin.

Rosa, a Mozambican peasant, is accused by the family of her husband of having caused his suicide by refusing to obey him. She is suspected of having a "spirit-husband". In order to prove her innocence, Rosa submits herself to two trials: one by a traditional healer, the other in court. She is absolved twice. Nevertheless, the dead man relatives continue to persecute her and she is punished in a cruel way. The film is interpreted by the real players of this story, the dead man by his twin brother. During the shooting, the director decided to install a second camera to follow the never ending plot of revenge. Such a complex editing has no parallel in African cinema.

Oscar, not quite a child anymore, scavenges for scrap metal for his father. He spends his life in improvised landfills among what remains of leftovers. Worlds apart, yet close-by, there is Stanley. He tidies the church in exchange for a monetised hospitality, picks fruits, herds sheep: anything that keep his foreign body busy. Oscar, the young Sicilian, and Stanley the Nigerian don’t seem to have much in common. Except for the feeling of being thrown into the world, to suffer the same refusal, the same overwhelming wave of choices imposed on them by others.