Ya Sharr Mout (2009)

The Shelter

It is winter at an emergency shelter for the homeless in Lausanne. Every night at the door of this little-known basement facility the same entry ritual takes place, resulting in confrontations which can sometimes turn violent. Those on duty at the shelter have the difficult task of “triaging the poor”: the women and children first, then the men. Although the total capacity at the shelter is 100, only 50 “chosen ones” will be admitted inside and granted a warm meal and a bed. The others know it will be a long night.

Hardcore Chambermusic

This documentary follows Swiss improvisation musicians and tells their stories.

Arada

The story of three Turkish men. They all grew up in Switzerland and all got deported after various criminal offenses.

Magic Radio

Radios echo across Niger, connecting lives through news, music, and debate. This gripping doc explores how this everyday device becomes a lifeline in a changing nation.

Exit: The Right to Die

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

Remue-ménage

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Mutiara, légende d'une perle

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Dimitri - Clown

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Rêve de Chine

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I Am Mariam Binladen

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Max Frisch, Citoyen

Max Frisch was the last big Swiss intellectual widely respected as a “voice” in its own right – a character hardly found today. The film retells Frisch’s story as a witness of the unfolding 20th century, wondering if such “voices” are needed at all, or if we could do without them.

Un petit coin de paradis

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Salecina

The Salecine meeting place, founded near Maloja in 1971 by Zurich communist bookseller Theo Pinkus, quickly became a socio-cultural and political Mecca for the left-wing intelligentsia. The film provides an overview of the chronicle of this Alpine melting pot of ideas, and also shows the changes in the zeitgeist since 1968. It is also a gentle, sentimental (sometimes self-ironic) tribute to the men and women of three generations of Salecina, who, at 1800 above sea level, are creating utopias for a fairer world.

Urs Fischer

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Vibrato

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Zeit der Titanen

Between 1950 and 1966, thousands of men set off into the high mountains of the Valais, into a primitive landscape of rock and ice. Here, they erected a temporary civilization. From here, they blasted the rock beneath the Matterhorn and other towering peaks to dig a 160 km-long labyrinth of tunnels to bring water from 35 glaciers to the world's highest dam: Grande Dixence. Miners and intellectuals such as the writer Maurice Chappaz retraced their steps through this endless black abyss in search of the places where the overcrowded barracks once stood, of which only a few ruins remain today. This is where they surpassed themselves.

Toumast - Entre Guitare et Kalashnikov

In 1996, Kalashnikovs were publicly burnt in Timbuktu. At the time, the "Flame of Peace" symbolized the end of the Touareg rebellion, which had been suppressed in bloody massacres. That year, the rebels laid down their arms. That year, with the government having made promises, the families who had fled abroad left Mauritania, Algeria and Burkina Faso to return home. In the fight for rights and survival waged by this people, who for centuries had found their freedom in one of the world's most inhospitable regions, the Sahara, culture and arms have been in direct competition ever since.

Ultima sfornata

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Soeurs

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Staatenlos - Klaus Rózsa, Fotograf

Klaus Rozsa, a well-known and politically active photographer, lived in Zurich for decades as a stateless individual. All of his applications for naturalisation were refused on political grounds. In 1956 he fled Hungary, growing up in Switzerland with a Jewish father who had survived Auschwitz and Dachau. Due to the extreme proximity of such a fate, the camera led him repeatedly to places where injustice was done. It was this particular quality of his camerawork that proved fateful for him.

Jung und Jenisch

Pascal, Miranda, Jeremy and Franziska are real gypsies. They're between 17 and 25, love big powerful cars and have decided to live on the move. Like many other young Yenish people. They need freedom and fight for it. They show a world closed to the sedentary. A different but very Swiss life. Today's Romanis: disenchanted, close to reality.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, tout dire

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Le crépuscule des Celtes

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GLOW

She was a muse, model and performer – a star, dazzling and intense. Lady Shiva managed to rise from street prostitution to the top. She lived in the fast lane and died tragically young. Her dream was to become a singer. With her companions, we trace her life during a vibrant time that kindles a yearning and provokes until today. The story of a woman’s meteoric fate and a great dream. An irrepressible desire for freedom in all its beauty and destructive force - and a stirring friendship and love.

Magic Matterhorn

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

The Knowledge of Healing

A documentary film about Tibetan traditional medicine.

The Congress of Penguins

The real place where the penguin congress takes place is also the most fictional place on this planet where you can stand on your own two legs. Here, even the animals can talk. This land of dreams and nightmares is called Antarctica. In this desert of ice surrounded by a stormy sea, a few dozen human beings also live. Using sophisticated instruments, they observe the worrying changes affecting our world: the hole in the ozone layer, climate change, and so on.

Sounds and Silence - Travels with Manfred Eicher

On the way through a world of sounds and noise – with Manfred Eicher, the oustanding discoverer and mediator of contemporary music and founder of the music label ECM. On this journey we are meeting musicians and composers, but also people and places which are connected with him and with each other. We are encountering stories, landscapes, cities, disputes and hugs, tranquillity, hectic pace, work, self-doubt, joy, passion.

Cloudy Times

Arami Ullón must return to Paraguay to make an important decision: what will happen to her sick mother, Mirna? The heartfelt gaze of the camera reveals a relationship filled with love, but also unspoken and unresolved issues. A sensitive film which examines the inner turmoil of the daughter during the final stages of her mother’s degenerative illness.

Brother's Body

(Re)immersing himself in body building, David Nicolas Parel endeavours to follow his younger brother as he trains for the Arnold Classic – Arnold, from the famous Austrian/American actor and politician. Convinced he is the one who inspired this passion, he worries about the risks this sport has on his brother’s health and aspires to strengthen their now strained bond. A film on the edge.

Genesis 2.0

A well-preserved mammoth carcass is found in the remote New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, opening up the possibility of a world-changing “Jurassic Park” moment in genetics.

The Fortress

The personal stories of the people from all around the world waiting for a decision in an asylum-seekers centre in one of most restrictive countries in the world, Switzerland.

Above and Below

Above and Below is a rough and rhythmic roller coaster ride seating five survivors in their daily hustle through an apocalyptic world. A journey of challenges and beauty in uncomfortable places: Rick & Cindy, Godfather Lalo in the flood channels deep down under the shiny strip of Sin City. Dave in the dry and lonesome Californian desert and April in simulation for a Mars mission in the Utah desert. Through the hustle, the pain and the laughs, we are whisked away to an unfamiliar world, yet quickly discover the souls we encounter are perhaps not that different from our own.

The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy

The incredible story of how the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man was discovered by a hunter in one of the most remote parts of the country. The dead man's detailed notes reveal that he actually committed suicide through self-imposed starvation only the summer before. Liechti's film is a stunning rapprochement of a fictional text, which itself is based upon a true event: a cinematic manifesto for life, challenged by the main character's radical renunciation of life itself.

Dust

A look at the pervasive power of dust from its tiny particles settling in unseen places to its ability to cause illnesses and create the cosmos.

Zen for Nothing

Hidden in the wooded mountains on the west coast of Japan lies the small Zen monastery Antaiji. A young woman sets off to immerse herself through autumn, winter and spring in the adventures of monastic life. The young woman is Sabine Timoteo from Switzerland. The abbot of the monastery is Muho Noelke, born in Berlin. An interplay between the philosophy of the Japanese Zen master Kodo Sawaki and the surprises brought forth by everyday life.

Cyclique

Is cycling the key to happiness? Does being a cycle courier mean absolute freedom or just providing a simple service? CYCLIQUE plunges us into the bicycle delivery world in Lausanne and allows us to share in the lives of three couriers who are at a crossroads in their lives.

Echoes of Home

What does a baby's cry have in common with the echo of a mountain yodler, and what connects the head tone of a Tuvin nomad with the stage show of a vocal artist? The answer is: THE VOICE. Against a background of powerful alpine vistas and modern city landscapes, "heimatklänge" enters the wondrous sonic world of three exceptional Swiss vocal artists. Their universe of sound extends far beyond what we would describe as singing. In their engagement with local and foreign traditions, the powerful mountain landscape becomes a stage as do the landscapes and sonic backdrops of modern life.