filmo Collection

Antoine and Ariane had a long affair. Then she left him because of Alexandre and he went abroad. Today Antoine is back. Ariane is absent but a man opens the door for him... Ariane has also left him. But who is Alexandre? A film with a light and refreshing humor.

9-year-old Anna goes to school and spends her free afternoons with her dolls. One day, however, everything turns out differently: when she copies herself in the school's photocopier, it spits out a second Anna. An exciting game of mistaken identity begins!

Glarus, november 1981: the little daughter of a distinguished family finds in her milk at breakfast some pins. The maid Anna Göldin arouses suspicion, a woman of complex sensuality. Both, master and daughter, are under a spell. Anna Göldin is at once dismissed. After that, the daughter is for weeks spitting out 106 pins and her left leg is getting paralyzed. Anna Göldin is getting accused, having bewitched the child. She is fetched back to Glarus. And she can heal the child. Therefor she produces evidence of being a witch. During torture she admits all accusations. On June 18, 1782 she is put to death. Anna Göldin ist he last woman in Europe, who is convicted as a witch by an official high court.

Another History tells Swiss history between 1910 and 1991 from a female perspective. In her three-part documentary, Tula Roy presents interviews with politically active women as well as contemporary witnesses and uses visual and audio documents to illuminate the struggle of women for their rights, their left-wing movements, labor struggles and anti-fascist commitment.

Adrien, a 70-year-old mountain farmer from the Valais, proposes a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway to his friends. The taciturn mountain men board the train, but they never really let go. Without cards and white wine, nothing works. Only Adrien makes it as far as Beijing: For the stubborn farmer, the long journey ultimately becomes a journey to himself, to his own feelings.

75-year-old Giuseppe De Metrio has spent 30 years in Geneva, as foreign worker for the Broyer company. Upon retirement, he returned to Puglia, Italy, where his family had continued to live. His only grandchild, 7-year-old Carla, is blind. The whole family looks forward hopefully to the day when Carla’s sight can be restored by means of a cornea transplantation. After a heart attack, Giuseppe decides to wait no longer and returns to Switzerland to ask his former boss Mr. Broyer for the money necessary for the operation, as an old promise binds the two men. Intended as a 48-hour trip, Giuseppe and Carla’s visit in Switzerland becomes a journey that both grandfather and granddaughter never dreamt of.

Bruno - former bank director turned gardener - can't forget his past. He saves the life of the unemployed Stefano. However, in order to take revenge on his former business partner Ernesto, he draws the young Italian and his girlfriend Maria into his diabolical plan: a robbery of his bank. The thriller starring Bruon Ganz is set in Lugano and is the first official Swiss-Italian co-production.

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.

Young Irina, a Russian call girl, finds herself in a fairytale Alpine country. There, her clientele grows to include representatives from business, politics, the military and the media. As a reward for her services, she is to receive the coveted Swiss passport. But through a misunderstanding, she triggers the coup d'état planned many years ago by a forgotten patriotic organization: the Berezina Alarm. With unforeseen consequences for her and Switzerland.

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.

The rich Bodenbauer practices factory farming, while his tenant Hans, does not like the idea of industrial animal farming. But he seems compelled to do so after Bodenbauer terminated a large piece of his land. The old veterinarian in the village encourages him not to give up easily.

A mediocre musician dreams of becoming a rock star: Julius sets out to find legendary American guitar maker Elmore Silk, with whom he wants to make a deal. He follows Silk's tracks and meets important people from his past. A journey during which the "American Dream" is taken ad absurdum. Atmospherically staged road movie through the USA with a soundtrack by Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Arto Lindsay, Joe Strummer and David Johansen.

The film paints the portrait of an old man who decides to abandon his comfortable bourgeois way of life and live with a Bohemian couple. There he rediscovers his freedom to think and his joie de vivre.

«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.

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.

“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.

Matthias is the illegitimate son of a factory worker. He lives as an indentured child labourer at his dictatorial aunt’s remote guesthouse. The only thing he knows in life are hard work and hard punches. After a sudden death in the family, the unhappy boy finds the opportunity to make his way to his mother. This 1941 literary adaptation is an almost forgotten jewel of Swiss film history that offers an impressive insight into Eastern Switzerland’s embroidery industry.

A smokestack stubbornly pierces the sky. Trains rumble by down below. Lights come on in the buildings as night falls. There is a man behind the camera, looking for an image – of himself? Of the world? Of society? By day and night, in rain and snow, he stands filming at the window of his studio. Periodically we hear people leaving messages on his answering machine. They talk about the weather while on vacation and congratulate him on his birthday. His father dies, a child is born, the young family begins to fall apart. Time passes. Slowly the cityscape morphs into the inner landscape of the man behind the camera.

1922: For the first time, the lonely weather station on the Säntis summit is occupied by a married couple. The unemployed Joseph Manser marries the pregnant Lena overnight and thus gets the post. But the weather warden couple have an adversary who feels cheated out of the job - he wants to take command on the mountain and climbs after the two. A showdown ensues at the weather station. - The film is based on true events.

In this interesting World War I drama, Bruno Ganz gives a compelling performance as Jakob, an obsessive inventor who lives in a Swiss village. He receives unconditional support from his friend Otti (Walo Luond), but that is about all; the other villagers do not tolerate Jakob's eccentricities very well, and regard him as a crackpot. He perserveres in spite of this obstacle and finally invents a viable carriage that does not run on wheels but on a tread. Unfortunately for Jakob, the military have already come up with the same invention: the tank. The discovery finally breaks him, and he is quickly shuttled off to an asylum.

In this Swiss film noir a private investigator stumbles onto a case involving blackmail and an oversexed, under-aged girl. He finds the girl, and, tragically, becomes involved with her.

Emil has fallen in love with Larissa. But before the two can really get to know one another, Larissa dies unexpectedly. And Emil, who only wants to obscure the sad truth about Larissa’s death, is mistaken for her former boyfriend. Larissa’s family takes a sincere liking to Emil; her sister Nora even begins to take an interest in the young man who had apparently been with Larissa during the last weeks of her life. Emil is suddenly needed and finds he is able to console Larissa’s family. But the closer his relationship with Nora becomes, all the more difficult it becomes for Emil to live with his fabricated past.

Max is an orphan who has been hired out to a farmer’s family. His foster parents treat him like a workhorse while their son seizes every opportunity to humiliate him. Playing the accordion is the one thing that is entirely his. But when the new teacher stands up for Max, it only makes a bad situation much worse. The only thing preserving his will to survive is his friendship with Berteli, who was also taken on to work at the farm. Max dreams of Argentina with her: a fantasy world, where allegedly even hayforks are made of silver.

The newly-wed Antoine climbs an alp with the elderly Séraphin. A few weeks later a terrible landslide takes people and animals to their death. There are no survivors. The few who have escaped the disaster inform the village. Thérèse, Antoine's young wife, is pregnant. It's difficult for her to see her pregnancy through and adjust to her role as a young widow. Two months later, Antoine manages to free himself from the rubble. The villagers think he's a ghost. Finally they come to accept the fact he is alive. But he cannot accept the fact he is the only survivor. He returns to the mountain, convinced that Séraphin is still alive. At dawn, Thérèse discovers his disappearance. She wants to look for him among the debris, in order to “snatch from the dead something still alive”.

Since the death of her husband, Martha, 80-year-old, has lost her zest for life. In her village in the Emmental, especially her friends Lisi, Hanni and Frieda are concerned about her. After discussion, they decide to help her realise a long-held dream: to open a lingerie boutique. The news causes consternation in the little town of Trub.

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

A small theater troupe is stranded in Switzerland after World War II: the artists hope to get a visa to South America. But to get it, they first have to pay off debts to the Swiss government – and perform an operetta. Swiss cinema classic, based on one of the most successful Swiss stage plays of the time.

17-year-old Edith is partying at her friend's house in Zurich and is dragged to a nightclub by the unscrupulous seducer Jean, who gets her drunk and abuses her. When she becomes pregnant, she asks her father, who is a gynecologist, to perform an abortion. He refuses at first, but eventually performs the procedure - with fatal consequences.

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.

Montreal, 1963. 13-year-old Hanna has to deal with growing up and with her family: Her father is trying unsuccessfully to make a living as a writer, her mother is constantly overworked. Hanna takes refuge in Godard's cinema and in her film idol Anna Karina - only to discover, like Karina in «Vivre sa vie», that although she is free, she is above all responsible for living her life. Sensitive and poetic coming-of-age and coming-out story with subtle overtones.

The day after the night of the full moon, 12 children all 10 years of age are found to be missing in the four language regions of Switzerland. The police and the media reassuringly claim that there are plenty of leads and clues. No kidnapper comes forward to contradict them. At the end of one week, all the parents receive the exact same letter from the children, written in cryptic language. By the next full moon they must have deciphered the letter and complied with all its requirements, or else… A dramatic-ironic tale that reveals the current state of Switzerland. Switzerland as a metaphor. Or: a plea for less logic and more imagination in our world.

A poetic journey through time to the history of the legendary "Grand Hotel Brissago".

Rock musician Benji leads a charmed life until the day the evil Maestro steals his shadow in order to take possession of Benji's musical talent. At first, Benji loses the ability to play, then he slowly becomes invisible. Desperate to help his friend, Globi follows the Maestro to his old “Opera house” and discovers that the villain has been stealing the shadows of all the gifted musicians, so that he may rule the world of music. With Globi's help, Benji and his musical partner Lucinda set out to regain their stolen shadows. Will the three of them be able to conquer the evil Maestro and save Benji's life?

The demise of airline Swissair in 2001 was a huge blow to Switzerland’s economy and to the country’s morale. It was a sad day for Swiss history when the airline’s fleet was grounded on 2 October 2001. Grounding is set during the last days of the doomed airline, and tells the story of manager Mario A. Corti’s unhappy fate, the last, unlucky CEO at the traditional airline company, as well as of all those nameless people who lost almost everything in the maelstrom of Swissair’s downfall: their job, home and their belief in Switzerland.

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.

Läppli is arrested as a supposed opponent of the army and misses the general mobilisation. Eventually he arrives at the barracks after all. There, as HD Läppli, he drives every superior mad in record time with his obtuseness and sense of justice.

Heidi (Elsbeth Sigmund), a young orphan girl living with her aunt (Elsie Attenhofer) in Frankfurt, is forced to move to the Swiss Alps to live with her ornery grandfather (Heinrich Gretler). At first, he resents her presence, but, after a short while, Heidi manages to pierce his gruff exterior, and the two become close. She also befriends a young shepherd named Peter (Thomas Klameth). After three years, Heidi's aunt arrives and demands Heidi's return to Frankfurt.

The second part of the famous story on Heidi. Returning from Frankfurt, she applies her new knowlegdes.

In 2016 the sun has turned the entire world into a scorched and barren wasteland. The humans who have survived are either resourceful or violent, and sometimes both. Marie, her little sister Leonie, and best friend Phillip, are in a car headed to the mountains - rumor has it there is water there. Along the way they meet Tom, a first-rate mechanic. But can they trust him? Fraught with deep distrust, the group is lured into an ambush where their real battle for survival begins.

A family's peaceful existence is threatened when a busy highway is opened only meters away from their isolated house in the middle of nowhere. Refusing to move, Marthe, Michel and their three children find innovative ways to adapt to their new environment. They continue their happy-go-lucky routine despite the daily stress of hundreds of noisy speeding cars. But suspicions about the highway's unknown long-term dangers cause family tension. Remaining in the disrupted household might not be so easy, but it's still their home.

Giuseppe Verdi's «finest work», as he himself described it, still stands today on the Piazza Buonarroti in Milan. It is the «Casa di riposo», founded by Verdi in 1896 for «people who are less fortunate than I» - people who never made a big career, and people who have long spent their dream salaries. Today they live, all long forgotten, in a small room with a suitcase full of memories.

Having doubts about the guilt of the obvious suspect in the murder of an eight year old girl, a police detective decides to investigate the case on his own.

The European equivalent of "The Return of the Secaucus 7," this Swiss film looks at the lives of several men and women in their 30s as they confront the slim gains of the "revolutionary" sixties. Max, a dissatisfied copy editor; Myriam, a redhead into tantric sex; and Marie, a supermarket checker who gives unauthorized discounts to the elderly, search for renewed meaning on a communal farm. The title character, a six-year-old child, is the carrier of their hopes for the future.

A comedy about aging, youth and other eternal truths. Of all days, precisely on her fiftieth birthday, Julia has to experience that age makes you invisible. Frustrated, she goes shopping and makes an acquaintance, spontaneously deciding to spend the evening with this stranger, rather than with the guests of her own birthday party. They wait for her in a restaurant, all dressed up and groomed, lively debating the years that have passed. The truths and wisdom of Julia's closest friends on aging and growing old are drowned increasingly in sufficient quantities of alcohol. In the mean time, on her eightieth birthday, Leonie, sulking over the loss of youth, is rebelling against her daughter, the senior citizen's home, conventions, and old age in general - and joyfully sabotaging the party in her honor.

Fifty years after her graduation, Senta von Meissen invites eight former school friends to a class reunion at her castle. The table is set for ten people. One place remains empty: Teddy, the hostess's once great school sweetheart, died in an accident on the Rhine Falls during the after-graduation trip. But was it really an accident? The evening turns into a murderous act of revenge.

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.

After the death of his mother, a middle-aged insurance salesman inherits her small cottage. Selling the cottage, which is attractively located near the center of a big city, makes him a rich man and he buys a large house in the countryside. The salesman then decides to throw a big garden party and invite all his colleagues from the office. Loosened by large amounts of alcohol, the guests gradually shed all their inhibitions and reveal their innermost frustrations.

Enchanted toys come to life to do battle with a holiday-hating villain who is bent on stopping Christmas.

The tragic accident of an Italian laborer ,working on the Mont Blanc tunnel.

Rosemonde the Salamander is a young girl who gets by thanks to low-paid jobs of all kinds. She is suspected of attempting to kill the uncle with whom she lives. A journalist and a writer are hired to get to the bottom of this mystery, as the basis for a television film scenario. They are unsuccessful however. The truth about Rosemonde and her special appreciation of life continue to elude these two amateur detectives.

In Lausanne, Léon is involved by accident with a small Leninist group and gets to know Léa, a dedicated activist and the group leader's mistress. The police keep a close watch on them and trouble is bound to follow.

Lucien asks a friend, Léon, to carry to the woman he desires, Alice, a basket of provisions and to thank him for it offers him its cap. Léon seduces Alice, small brunette and admits later to his friend his "overflowings". Léon returns at Alice's home but it is not any more the same person; she is blonde and bears no resemblance to the woman the day before. One is sensual and welcoming, the other, mysterious and independent. Alice in Verbland. No drama, no action, a so "seventies" nonchalance... and the art of the conversation as the main subject of a delicious film, worn by remarkable actors (Marie Dubois, Jean-Luc Bideau and Jacques Denis). A wonderful, free and independant film.

Thirteen-year-old Sandra isn't happy to be the new girl in town, but then she falls in love with Mike, the boy next door. Everything seems perfect, until the day the young couple witness Mike's mother having an affair. Mike is devastated, but what he does not realize is that his mother's ardent lover is actually Sandra's father, an old childhood sweetheart. Divided by her loyalty to her father and her feelings for Mike, Sandra decides to keep her father's identity a secret. However, she can't keep up the charade for much longer, and whatever she decides, it is bound to have serious consequences.

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.

15-year-old Max sets off for Saint-Hilare in search of his father, the famous troubadour Johnny Bigoude, who disappeared shortly before Max's birth. He is waylaid by Sam, a rascally fairground entertainer, and introduced to the delights of the amazing Fly Swatter Festival. When Max finally gets there, Saint-Hilare turns out to be the private kingdom of Bzzz & Co., infamous manufacturers of flyswatters, run by the degenerate Rodolfo. Musical virtuoso Max makes a big impression, especially on smart, lovely, resourceful Felicie, who convinces Rodolfo to hire him...

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.

Project initially entrusted to Maurice Pialat, who had already begun to film it under the title of “Meurtrières” (see the special edition of Les Inrockuptibles devoted to Pialat), Messidor is based on a crime story which hit the headlines in France in the 1970s: two adolescent girls run away and go on a criminal spree which ends in their deaths. On the face of it, this subject is remote from the world we associate with Tanner, since a violent story of this kind and its social background would seem to impose the realistic, even naturalistic form always shunned by the Swiss director. Moreover, Tanner is instinctively averse to filming physical violence. “Killing a person”, he says, “is generally a gratuitous special effect.” Consequently, of all Tanner’s films Messidor is the only one in which someone dies of non-natural causes. It is also Tanner’s most sombre work, characterised by a despair unmitigated by his usual verbal and situational humour. This is because Tanner accepted the project only on condition that he could recast the original idea and use this violent story as a vehicle for more personal preoccupations: the limits of freedom (already treated in his previous film) are here related to the girls’ frantic flight in the Swiss countryside. What interests him is the possible sullying of this place of excessive peace and quiet, now transformed into a field of experience and criminal fun-and-games by the two characters..

This short film shows the contrast between the good conditions in which a rich woman makes an abortion and the miserable and dangerous condition in which a poor woman has to do an abortion.

In May 1747, the aging Johann Sebastian Bach (Vadim Glowna) meets the young King Frederick II of Prussia (Jürgen Vogel) in Potsdam. For one week, these two titans of the Baroque era play out a father-and-son relationship that is sometimes painful, yet often humorous. A battle of giants that provokes joyful chaos, both among the Bach clan as well as in the royal palace.

The scene of the action is a closed-down, dilapidated hotel in the Swiss mountains which has been lying empty for some time. The hotel used to belong to the narrator’s grandparents, and it was there that he was born and brought up. He visits the hotel for the last tim with the intention of losing himself in memories connected with the old building.

The paths of guests and employees cross at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz: A chambermaid experiences financial difficulties. A guest has been robbed. A thief is caught. An assistant cook is promoted to waiter. And there’s no shortage of love in this small world of the great Hotel Palace. Keeping an orderly eye over proceedings is the hotel’s beautiful patron, whose heart is in the right place. In collaboration with Praesens Film, Cinémathèque Suisse, Memoriav and SRF, ZFF presents for the first time the restored version of a Swiss cinema classic. The cast list reads like a who’s who of erstwhile Swiss film.

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.

An endearing light comedy about a woman who spontaneously becomes a resident of Venice after her family left her begin. While enjoying the wonderful people she meets she achieves a new life and the first time independent of her family.

Marie is Swiss, Filipa is of Portuguese origin. One wants to study forever, the other wants to get married. When Marie is lovesick, Filipa suggests that they spend a month together in Portugal with her family. There they have various encounters, but also conflicts. Love and emotions send them into a frenzy - and then they also have numerous decisions to make.

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.

The story of a Turkish couple, who start their “Journey of Hope” from a small village in South-East Turkey to Switzerland in order to escape poverty. They are taking their son, who is the brightest of their eight children. From Izmir they travel to Genoa with a freighter. In Italy they are taken by smugglers to the Alps and sent on towards Switzerland, despite the snow and the cold. Father and son are separated from Meryem. Will anyone reach the land of promise?

In this docudrama, the real star is a railroad tunnel. First built, at the instigation of a banker and an engineer, in 1872 under appalling conditions, it was widened to accommodate automobiles in 1972. The tunnel links the Rhineland in Germany with Italy and goes through the Swiss mountains. The many lives lost in the building of the first tunnel were considered to be one of the costs for economic progress. In one re-enactment, a strike for better conditions is severely dealt with by the military. Even in 1972, though working conditions were better, most of the men working on the tunnel were poor immigrant workers, with almost no power to negotiate better treatment.

On a summer morning, the opening of the trial in the Zurich District Court is announced for 8 o'clock. On trial is the divorce case of Marlene Faber and Nick Merk. The couple is waiting outside the courtroom for their divorce and is reviewing their marriage once again: From the honeymoon over the first quarrels until the end.

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.

A kind of road movie which travels in the grooves of magically charged landscapes across Europe. From the Swiss Alps to eastern Poland, from Stromboli to Iceland… the film is a large-scale attempt to achieve the ideal cruising speed. Roman Signer marks the stages of the journey with his own highly personal set of instruments – strikingly succinct interventions full of underlying humour. The film is also a journey through mental and emotional states. A tightrope walk between devilment and melancholy. Danger – including mental danger – develops into a sensual stimulus. Sudden crashes and abrupt changes of mood create the rhythm and the climate of the film. “Chamber of music” is how Signer describes his exploits with rocket and fuse, “sculptural chamber music”.

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.

Midsummer by the sea in the Maremma in Tuscany. Vincenzo and Adriana, trapped in emotional dependency, make one last desperate attempt to save their marriage. Their 12-year-old son Nic processes the trauma from his father’s violent outbursts in games with other children. Although he is well integrated in his group of friends, he finds it extremely difficult to express what he feels for Marie, who is the same age and suffers from her own relationship with her father. A film about the first steps towards a life of one’s own.

Two communities in Europe in 1992: Vechigen in Switzerland, Trhové Sviny in the Czech Republic. On the surface these two villages have no connection, but filmmaker Lisa Fässler brings them together. As people in Vechigen are contemplating Switzerland's entry into the European Community, people in Trhové Sviny are searching for a new identity after the disappearance of the communist regime. As the inhabitants of Trhové Sviny watch the Russian troops leave, the Swiss army thunders through Vechigen as part of an exercise. TANZ DER BLAUEN VÖGEL is a cinematographic essay on the new relations within Europe. Lisa Fässler is especially concerned with the human aspect of this process. The film examines the worries, hopes and dreams of people in two villages, that are geographically close but which are socially, economically and psychologically separated - thanks to history. In Vechigen there is a rigid satisfaction, Trhové Sviny is dominated by uncertainty.

During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?

The old Grotzen farmer runs an industrial cattle and chicken farm. His son and his wife are shocked by the animal cruelty that the profit-maximizing animal husbandry entails. The Grotzen farmer himself falls deeper and deeper into the dependence of an unscrupulous feed supplier. And then the ventilation system in the barn also fails... A film that shook up the Swiss population on the subject of factory farming as early as the mid-1970s.

The shy Pomme (Isabelle Huppert) meets the philosophy student François on holiday in Normandy. François becomes her first lover and she moves in with him: head over heels in love, the young and inexperienced couple return to Paris with big dreams. But their social and cultural differences stand in the way of happiness. The student she had unconsciously saved herself for will, without meaning to, ruin Pomme.

A story about a heart - Edmond's heart, which is no longer very strong. But it beats persistently for independence. A nursing home or home care is out of the question. This extends to Rose, who is sent to him as a home care worker. Yet the young woman defies him. One day, a serious fall forces Edmond to accept Rose's help - and an unusual friendship develops.

«The Sandman» tells the bizarrely absurd story of the philatelist Benno. One day, he realizes that he is losing sand. Day by day those sand losses are increasing and he is threatened to completely disintegrate. In addition, his neighbour Sandra, whom he hates deeply, prevents him from sleeping by singing every night in his café below Benno's apartment. However, he finds himself forced to address his worst enemy when he realizes that only she can save him. Then begins a mad race against the clock....

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.

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 film deals with an imigrant woman from southern Italy, who lives in Frankfurt in the 1970s. Unusual about this film is the way of the storytelling. The original plan was to make a documentary, but none of the female protagonists were willing to be seen in front of the camera. The fear to expose their own family was too big. The law of “omerta” exists in the diaspora as well. A southern italian proverb states: “The girls greatest value is her beauty - the womans greatest value is her silence”. For this reason, in the film only the sound of Maria M. from Basilicata, can be heard. She remains anonemous. In the movie, southern italian emigrants act in Maria's story. In fact, they end up playing themselves, which gives the film several layers and adds a refreshing sense of humor.

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.

Titeuf has just learned that all the boys in his class have been invited to Nadia’s birthday party – except for him! That same evening his parents inform him that they are going to separate.

Schmid's satire on 19th-century class relations is also a thinly veiled commentary on the failure of the 1968 political revolution. Once a year, an aristocratic Austrian family holds a traditional feast at which masters and servants trade places. A troupe of actors (including cult cabaret artist Ingrid Caven) are hired to entertain the guests, performing fragments from the "cultural scrap heap": GONE WITH THE WIND, Madame Bovary, Tennessee Williams, Swan Lake. The decadent proceedings take on a dangerous edge when the actors incite the servants to revolt against their masters-but is the Revolution also part of the act?

Uli, the farm hand of the Boden farm, is a bawdy, careless, spendthrift fellow. Lectured by his master, he becomes aware that if he is to escape his abject condition, he must reform. He accordingly leaves the farm girl Anneliesi, turns his back on his drinking companions and starts working hard. His reputation improves so much so that Joggeli, an old farmer, hires him to restore order in the Giungge farm where chaos is rife. In using strong-arms tactics, Uli attains his ends and soon becomes indispensable. Attracted to the sweet Vreneli, Uli is unfortunately lured by Elisi, the master's scheming daughter. It is based on the classic 1841 novel of the same name by Jeremias Gotthelf.

Uli, the tenant on the 'Glunggenhof', leads a happy life with his wife and child. Weather luck and honest work bring him rich harvests, and so he looks hopefully into the future. In the nearby Stöckli live the old Joggeli and his wife, the 'Glunggenbäuerin', the good soul of the farm. They also profit from the success of their tenant. But Uli becomes overconfident and, advised by false friends, gets entangled in unclean business. When a storm destroys the harvest and Uli is confined to bed by a serious illness, things quickly go downhill. Although Vreneli fights bravely against all adversity, the farm and its inhabitants are in danger of ruin. Only when the recovering Uli with a heavy heart admits to his mistakes and shows remorse, the tide seems to turn

The Film UR-MUSIG authored by Cyrill Schlaepfer is a musical journey into the remaining worlds of authentic and traditional Swiss folkmusic. It's unconventional form as a symphony of sounds, music, pictures and landscapes (soundscapes) caught the attention of the audience at it's successful premiere at the International Filmfestival Locarno 1993. After beeing showcased at many differnent Music- and Filmfestivals in Switzerland and abroad the award winning film UR-MUSIG got it's famous cult-reputation by continuous screening of more than 2 years in Zurich.

Argentinian biology student Miro falls madly in love with young actress Mercedes, but is without a clue as to how to win her love. Then, a series of misunderstandings put him in the hot seat as a famous film director. Miro grabs his chance to shoot a film with Mercedes as his leading lady, hoping that she will fall for him. Whilst his plan is crazy, it is simple enough and Cupid is on his side. But Miro hasn't reckoned with film students Peter and Luigi who wish to shoot a “making-of” documentary of the great Argentinian “director”at work.

Faces of Children (Visages d'enfants), a masterpiece, was filmed on location in the Haut-Valais region of Switzerland, with spectacular mountain scenery adding important atmosphere to the characters' complex emotions. The film is about the effect on a sensitive boy (again Jean Forest, who is heartrending) of his mother's death and his father's remarriage.

The deeds of the Swiss national hero William Tell in his fight against despotism and violence in 1291. Based on the drama by Friedrich Schiller and the chronicle by Aegidius Tschudi, filmed on original locations. The film is now protected as a Swiss cultural property.

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.