Swiss Film Award

Two happy families, a quiet beach and a house in the hills above the Adriatic Sea. It could be so perfect. But when teenager Finn has a breakdown it brings turmoil not only to the friendship between the families but also to the relationship between his parents Helena and Adam. In his second film, Swiss director Samuel Perriard portrays the gradual transformation of a couple, sensitively narrated and with strong atmospheric images - impressively embodied by Julia Jentsch and Florian Lukas. Eight days in August that change everything, and one last summer before a new chapter is opened.

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.

A crazy referendum throws Switzerland into a state of emergency. By the acceptance of the initiative “No Bilangue” there should be from now on only one national language: French. Many German-speaking Swiss are therefore having a crisis. Including fifty-six-year-old Walter Egli, who works for the Federal Police and must ensure that the transition to monolingualism is carried out properly. Although he hardly speaks any French himself, he is sent to Ticino with a French-speaking partner to uncover a Ticino resistance group that is fighting the new law by all means necessary. Peter Luisi and Beat Schlatter have created a wonderfully contemporary hymn to multilingualism in the form of a comedy that has attracted over 350,000 viewers to Swiss cinemas. Luisi and Schlatter were nominated for the Swiss Film Award for Best Screenplay.

Sophie is a brilliant student. Encouraged by her maths teacher, she leaves the family farm to attempt a science preparatory course. Between new encounters, mistrust, failures and fierce competition, Sophie realizes that getting into Polytechnique is more than just a competitive examination – it's a real challenge to climb the social ladder. Will she succeed? Director Frédéric Mermoud - with a winning Suzanne Jouannet in the leading role - brings the fight for educational justice in the elitist education system of contemporary France to the screen. Maud Wyler was awarded the Swiss Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Etero, a 48-year-old woman living in a small village in Georgia, never wanted a husband. She cherishes her freedom as much as her cakes. But her choice to live alone is the cause of much gossip among her fellow villagers. Unexpectedly, she finds herself passionately falling for a man, and is suddenly faced with the decision to pursue a relationship or continue a life of independence. Etero must grapple with her feelings and decide how to find her own path to happiness. With "Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry", which premiered at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight in 2023 and won the Swiss Film Award for Best Feature Film in 2024, director Elene Naveriani tells the story of a woman who strives for her own freedom and has to fight against the social constructions in and around her. The film is based on the Georgian novel of the same name by Tamta Melashvili.

22-year-old nurse Frédérique (Isild Le Besco) may have had enough of life, but dying isn’t much easier either. After gathering all her courage, with her gun poised at the ready, she suddenly hears a child scream. The bullet destroys Marco’s knee and the 13-year-old boy is taken to the very hospital that Frédérique works in. She tries to avoid taking care of him but slowly notices that Marco is very similar to her: suspicious, aggressive, and uncommunicative. He also hits those who get close to him, and Frédérique welcomes his hateful outbursts as a just punishment. In "A Parting Shot", Jeanne Waltz tells the story of two egocentrics whose shared journey through life leads them to see things in a new light. The film premiered at the Berlinale in 2007 and Waltz won the Swiss Film Award for Best Screenplay in 2008.

Everyone has their own Chimera, something they try to achieve but never manage to find. For the band of tombaroli, thieves of ancient grave goods and archaeological wonders, the Chimera means redemption from work and the dream of easy wealth. For Arthur, the Chimera looks like the woman he lost, Beniamina. To find her, Arthur challenges the invisible, searches everywhere, goes inside the earth – in search of the door to the afterlife of which myths speak. In an adventurous journey between the living and the dead, between forests and cities, between celebrations and solitudes, the intertwined destinies of these characters unfold, all in search of the Chimera. Alice Rohrwacher ("Lazzaro Felice") takes us on a wonderfully imaginative ballad set in Italy's past.

In a delirious summer rush, teenage father Gabriel falls in love with enigmatic Corey, the girlfriend of his best friend Joel. Deeply hurt about their deceitful intentions, Joel reveals the truth about Gabriel’s entangled past, there is not only a child. Overwhelmed with the decision of his life, Gabriel is catapulted into the unforgiving wilderness of his heart, where imagination is more real than reality. Lorenz Merz's film premiered at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival and was awarded the 2022 Swiss Film Award in various categories.

Mr. Moll is home alone with his kids over the weekend, and mayhem ensues. While Moll is working overtime at the chocolate factory the kids get into a feud with the nasty boys next door - a fight about cotton candy, homework and the most famous circus dog in the world.

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.

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.

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.

Erwin Graf leads a middle class life in a middle class town. He has a wife and a daughter and a job like everyone else. Suddenly he is sacked after twenty years of working for the same company. Erwin is shattered and decides to keep his unemployment secret. He hopes to find a new job in a few days and in the meantime pretends to go off to work each morning. But as time goes by without any success he gets more and more depressed. His change of mood doesn’t go unnoticed at home and soon affects his relationships. The tension is unbearable. The film takes place in Switzerland at a time when New Economy reaches this small – once so secure and safe – country.

In a remote Alpine village isolated from the outside world, young love is put to the test. Anna comes from the village and has a daughter from an earlier relationship, while Marco is an outsider from the flatlands hired by the mountain farmers to work the rugged land. Together they experience the joy of new love and the closeness of family. But when Marco suddenly starts losing control over his impulses and behaving erratically, a new tension rises in the community. Through the changing seasons and the harshness of life, Anna fights to preserve a love she believes can outshine even death. Awarded Best Fiction Film at the 2023 Swiss Film Awards.

Newly retired, Alice and her husband Peter are ready to finally enjoy their life as pensioners. But their pent-up marital problems bubble to the surface on a cruise trip through the Mediterranean. The spouses end up going on separate journeys of self-discovery, both finding unexpected ways of how to spend their golden years.

After a violent argument with her mother, Margaret, 35 years old and with a long history of inflicting and suffering from violence, is subject to a strict restraining order before her trial: she’s no longer allowed to make contact with her mother or approach within 100 metres of the family home for three months. But this separation only exacerbates her desire to be closer to her family and so she returns every day to this invisible and impassable frontier. «La Ligne» celebrated its premiere in competition at the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Fiction Film at the at the 2023 Swiss Film Awards.

In the spring of 1945 as Nazi Germany collapses, Swiss ambassador Heinrich Zwygart flees bombed-out Berlin after serving eight years in the capital of the Reich. This is the end of a dreadful mandate, during which he had to make fatal compromises to preserve the neutrality and security of his country. While he tries to reunite with his estranged family in his unscathed home country, the arrival of peace puts Zwygart in a delicate position. How could the Swiss policy, which was more than favorable to Germany, be justified at a time when the Allies and the Russians are liberating Europe and question the behavior of the Swiss Government during the war? For Switzerland to end on the winning side after the war, someone will have to pay. Haunted by his past, struggling to secure a future, but driven by his ambition Zwygart feels the trap closing in on him. He made it through the war, but will he survive peace? Lead Michael Neuenschwander was nominated for Best Actor at the 2023 Swiss Film Awards.

Barbara Hug (Marie Leuenberger) is a young radical lawyer fighting Switzerland’s antiquated prison system in the 1980s. Walter Stürm (Joel Basman) is a charmer and chancer. Taunting the establishment with his outrageous thefts and media savvy he’s in and often escaping out of jail and becomes known as the Jailbreak King. When the two meet an unlikely alliance is formed.

Ruza (Mirjana Karanović) left Serbia, her country, over thirty years ago and lives in Zurich. Her daily life is a string of repetitive moments until, one day, Ana (Marija Škaričić) arrives on the scene and upsets Ruza's painstakingly organized world. A subtle friendship develops between the two strongwilled women.

A film based on Jacques Chessex' novel of the same title; featuring André Wilms as Chessex and Bruno Ganz as Arthur Bloch, Swiss Jew killed by Swiss Nazis.

Vitus is a boy who almost seems to be from another planet: He has hearing like a bat, he plays piano like a virtuoso and studies encyclopaedias at the age of five. No wonder his parents begin to anticipate a brilliant future for him. They want Vitus to become a pianist. However, the little genius prefers to play in his eccentric grandfather’s workshop. He dreams of flying and of a normal childhood. Ultimately, with one dramatic leap, Vitus takes control of his own life…

Summer 1900, in a valley in southern Switzerland. Elisabeth is seventeen years old and about to take her vows when the sudden death of her older sister forces her to leave the convent and return to the family farm she had left five years earlier. But Elisabeth is no longer a child. Stifled by the suffocating and strict rules of the village and obsessed by the mysteries surrounding her sister's disappearance, she will fight for her right to experiment. The highly talented French-speaking Swiss director Carmen Jaquier explores female emancipation in the midst of oppressive social norms in impressively composed images. Switzerland's official submission to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood in the "Best International Film" category for 2023.

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?

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.

A failed author, a wife in hiding, a clandestine gay IT-specialist meet in an Iraqi café in London. Incited by a radical Sheik, the author's nephew attacks them and turns their lives upside down.

New technologies are transforming a 19th-century watchmaking town in Switzerland. Josephine, a young factory worker, produces the unrest wheel, swinging in the heart of the mechanical watch. Exposed to new ways of organizing money, time and labour, she gets involved with the local movement of the anarchist watchmakers, where she meets Russian traveller Pyotr Kropotkin.

“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.

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.

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.

Exiled in Switzerland, Olga, 15, is a talented Ukrainian gymnast. Like all athletes at the top of their game, she dreams of Olympic gold. She tries her best to fit into her new national team but, as the European Championship draws near, the revolution in Kiev shakes her world and tests her will.

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.

A village on the Georgian Black Sea is full of friendly people convinced they know each other. One day, Eliko is found hanged. His granddaughter Moe comes to organize his funeral. She is confronted with a web of lies and the tragic consequences of Eliko’s hidden love life with Amnon, which lasted 22 years. The truth however frees Moe’s capability to love and forces the villagers to take a stand.

With his films, Georges Schwizgebel has created classics of contemporary animation. "With his fluid metamorphoses, he is a "painter of the big screen". The sweeping camera movements in his film paintings transcend spatial and temporal boundaries with astounding continuity", reads the jury statement for the Honorary Award of the Swiss Film Awards, which Georges Schwizgebel received in 2018. A collection of 18 works full of poetry: Le Vol d’Icare (1974) Perspectives (1975) Hors-Jeux (1977) Le Ravissement de Frank N. Stein (1982) 78 tours (1985) Nakounine (1986) Le Sujet du tableau (1989) La Course à l’Abîme (1992) L’Année du Daim (1995) Zig Zag (1996) Fugue (1998) La Jeune Filles et les Nuages (2000) L’Homme sans Ombre (2004) Jeu (2006) Retouches (2008) Romance (2011) Chemin Faisant (2012) Le Roi des Aulnes - Erlkönig (2015)

The story of Rafael, a fun-loving youth on the verge of manhood who is trying to make his dream of total freedom become reality. Determined to conquer the world with his Utopia Blues Band at any cost, Rafael's philosophy is that “life is a game”. But the game unexpectedly becomes bitter earnest. How much freedom is permitted?

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Polish woman Wanda, 35, looks after Joseph, 70, in his family villa by the lake. She is there for him around the clock and also helps his wife Elsa, 75. The youngest son Gregi, 28, likes her very much. The work is poorly paid, but Wanda needs the money for her own family in Poland. Since everyone lives under one roof, Wanda gets an intimate view of their family life. So intimate that Wanda unexpectedly becomes pregnant.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

Goalie has just been released from prison after spending a year inside for keeping his mouth shut for his best buddy Ueli. He heads for his hometown of Schummertal, a small town where everyone knows you. He's going to start over, without drugs. Meanwhile, Ueli has gotten ever deeper into drugs, can't understand why Goalie suddenly wants to be a square. Although they've been friends since childhood, everything is different now. Goalie wants a new life but finds his past.

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.

When her mother decides to stop administering medication to her mentally challenged daughter, 18-year-old Dora awakes, as if from a deep sleep. Dora discovers her body, her sensuality and finally, sex, too. Her parents are shocked by Dora’s sudden unbridled lust for life and, when she gets involved with a man she meets at her market stall vendor job, they are furious. Seeing her relationship as unscrupulous and abusive, they demand their daughter stops seeing her lover. But their efforts are to no avail and, when Dora’s affair leads to a more serious situation, everyone has to reassess the limits of their relationship to each other, and reconsider such topics as self-determination, trust and jealousy. Courageous, necessary and sensitive – Stina Werenfels’ adaptation of Lukas Bärfuss’s stage play is a fearless and moving drama about letting go. The tender, subjective shots that capture the beauty of the world as Dora sees it are as much a part of the film’s success as is the portrait of a desperate mother, having to cope with life’s pitfalls

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.

971: Nora is a young housewife and mother, living in a quaint little village with her husband and their two sons. The Swiss countryside is untouched by the major social upheavals the movement of 1968 has brought about. Nora’s life is not affected either; she is a quiet person who is liked by everybody – until she starts to publicly fight for women’s suffrage, which the men are due to vote on in a ballot on February 7, 1971.

Zurich, 1958. The bashful teacher Ernst Ostertag and the German cabaret artist Röbi Rapp get to know one another in the Swiss underground organisation called “Der Kreis.” As the two dissimilar men defend their love, they witness the heyday and decline of this Europe-wide pioneering organisation for gay emancipation.

Swiss-Japanese filmmaker Aya Domenig, the granddaughter of a doctor on duty for the Red Cross during the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, approaches the experience of her deceased grandfather by tracing the lives of a doctor and of former nurses who once shared the same experience. While gathering the memories and present views of these very last survivors, the nuclear disaster in Fukushima strikes and history seems to repeat itself.

An ordinary day in the megacity of Istanbul: Ten-year-old Cemo sells paper tissues in the streets, Hayat is controlled by her husband and transsexual Ebru sells her body. All three have a secret love and they do everything to satisfy their longing, if only for a moment. An authentic, delicate and unsettling story about love, death and the Turkish society at the beginning of the 21st century.

After losing his mother, a young boy is sent to a foster home with other orphans his age where he begins to learn the meaning of trust and true love.

After losing his mother, a young boy is sent to a foster home with other orphans his age where he begins to learn the meaning of trust and true love.

1984: Searching for an experience beyond modern civilisation, Bruno Manser travels into the jungles of Borneo and finds the nomadic Penan tribe. When the existence of the Penan is threatened by relentless deforestation, Manser takes up the fight against logging with a courage and determination that makes him one of the most renowned and credible environmentalists of his time. Based on a true story.

The war in Congo has caused more than six million deaths over the last twenty years. The population is suffering, but the offenders stay with impunity. Many people see this conflict as one of globalisation's crucial econimic distribution battles because the country has major deposits of many high-tech raw materials. Milo Rau, one of Europe's most acclaimed theatre directors, succeeds in gathering victims, perpetrators, observes and analysts of the conflict for a unique civil tribunal in eastern Congo. The documentary film brings these spectacular court trials to life on the big screen and creates an unvarnished portrait of the largest and bloodiest economic wars in human history.

After five years studying in Paris, Arash has not adjusted to life there and has decided to return to Iran to live. Hoping to change his mind, his two friends Hossein and Ashkan convince him to take a last trip through France.

Pensioner Roli comes to Fareed’s assistance when the Syrian refugee is faced with the burial of his Muslim wife. Together they stumble into a bewildering forest of Swiss bureaucracy to which Roli finds a beautifully simple answer.

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.

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.

Fortuna (14), a young Ethiopian teenage girl, has had no news of her parents since arriving in Lampedusa, Italy. Together with other refugees, she is given shelter for the winter in a Swiss catholic hospice at an altitude of over 2000 meters. While they wait for their fate to be decided by the Swiss authorities, Fortuna meets Kabir, a 26-year-old African refugee, and falls desperately in love. Their relationship develops in secret, till the day Kabir disappears. - Bruno Ganz as Brother Jean.

Jonas Widmer is one of the best long-distance runners in Switzerland, his big goal is the Olympic marathon. Despite his difficult childhood, he seems to have found his way: Apart from his passion for sports, he works as a cook and is about to move in with this girlfriend. But then Jonas fails to defend his title at his home race and is increasingly caught up in the memories of his late brother Philipp. Unable to put the inner pressure of suffering into words, Jonas develops a tragic double life in his growing desperation. The Zurich director Hannes Baumgartner was inspired by a true Swiss criminal case for his first feature film. DER LÄUFER creates a differentiated image of an ambivalent figure entangled in a densely woven web of formative experiences, processes of repression and inner conflict.

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

Parents split up, a family falls apart. Two separate worlds emerge from what once was considered a unity. In constant transition, children now live between two homes. WHERE WE BELONG approaches their reality and focuses on how fragile children are, but also how brave, smart and funny they respond to their situation.

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.

Pays de Gex, on the Swiss border. P.A. and his group of friends are in their last year of high school. One hundred metres beneath their feet, the LHC, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, recreates the energy conditions of the big bang in order to detect unknown particles. As winter sets in, P.A. starts to observe strange phenomena in the environment. The changes are imperceptible at first, but gradually his whole world seems to be on the brink.

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.

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.

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.

Spring 1995 – after the closure of the Needle Park and the public drug scene in Zurich, eleven-year-old Mia and her heroin addicted mother Sandrine are relocated to the countryside. While caring for her mother, Mia spends time with her imaginary friend and a gang of local teenage misfits. These friendships finally give her the strength to rebel and break free from her abusive mother.

Leo's got a lot to do. A lot. He has a small sanitation company. And he is a single father of two teenage children. Diana is an artist, dreaming into the day. Her art doesn't sell at all. Now her landlord is also putting pressure on her, wanting his money. Diana senses her big chance when she has to paint a painting on the office wall of a lawyer. This is how she meets Leo - he needs legal assistance because erotic photographs of his daughter have appeared on the Internet. Silvio Soldini interweaves various stories, cleverly bringing them together. Besides Diana and Leo, there is Elia, who secretly raises a stork, the urban hermit Amanzio, Leo's late wife Teresa and a mysterious private detective...

Yvan De Wiel, a private banker from Geneva, is going to Argentina in the midst of a dictatorship to replace his partner, the object of the most worrying rumors, who disappeared overnight. Between hushed lounges, swimming pools, and gardens under surveillance, a remote duel takes place between two bankers who, despite different methods, are the accomplices of a discreet and merciless form of colonization.

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.

It is summer in a small village in south-eastern Spain. A storm threatens to cause the river that runs through it to overflow again. A popular old belief claims that some women are predestined to disappear with each new flood, because they have the “water inside”. A band of young people is trying to overcome the weariness of a summer in the village that smells of death by smoking, dancing, and lusting after each other. In this electric atmosphere that precedes the storm, Ana and José live a love affair until the storm bursts.

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.

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.

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.

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.