Look Now! Collection

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.

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 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.

On his expedition into the heart of Switzerland, Swiss filmmaker Matthias von Gunten met six people whose lives and everyday lives, their small and big fates fascinated him. At first glance, they have nothing to do with each other apart from living in Switzerland: six very different people, their attempts to master everyday life and their individual escapes from reality. In the course of this one year, in which von Gunten visited them again and again, a lot happens in the lives of these people. On these surprising journeys, Von Gunten traces the absurd and dramatic behind seemingly normal everyday life. Thus, little by little, an exciting time picture emerges in which each of these people has their place. The six people, their fears and dreams, their hopes and failures create an atmospheric picture of our lives today. To face or escape the much disdained Helvetic narrowness: there are different possibilities - the six people in Matthias von Gunten's film live some of them.

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.