The Congress of Penguins (1993)

Tosca's Kiss

Memoirs of the Italian Opera by the singers and musicians of the Casa Verdi, Milan, the world’s first nursing home for retired opera singers, founded by composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1896. This documentary, which has achieved cult-like status among opera and music lovers, features former singers who reminisce about their careers and their past operatic roles.

Far from the Villages

Since the conflict in Darfur spread to the eastern border regions of Chad in 2005, some 13,000 people fled from this region to the refugee camp near the village of Gouroukoun. For them, the war is never far off. Many of these traumatised refugees have lived here for years, with little food, no work and no prospect of returning home. Zuchuat took his camera to the camp and captured their uncertain existence without providing any comment. He captures the refugees' arduous daily life in long shots, often from a single angle. They all have their own stories of how they ended up here, how they saw their families and fellow-villagers perish and no longer have any work, cattle or land. Another striking story is told by a child that uses a drawing to explain how he was chased away from his native village. Little girls sing a battle song while waiting for what comes next in this prison without bars.

Meerdolen

Plot unavailable

Ho und Überall

Plot unavailable

Life in Progress

Plot unavailable

Into Great Silence

Into Great Silence (German: Die Große Stille) is a documentary film directed by Philip Gröning that was first released in 2005. It is an intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.

Raving Iran

Anoosh and Arash are at the center of Tehran’s underground techno scene. Tired of hiding from the police and their stagnating career, they organize one last manic techno rave under dangerous circumstances in the desert. Back in Tehran they try their luck selling their illegally printed music album without permission. When Anoosh is arrested, there seems to be no hope left. But then they receive a phone call from the biggest techno festival in the world. Once landed in Switzerland, the haze of the instant euphoria evaporates quickly when the seriousness of the situation starts to dawn on them.

Dutti der Riese

Documentary about Swiss grocery store pioneer Gottlieb Duttweiler

Kill Hitler

This 140-minute documentary takes a close look at the story and historical context of a young Swiss man who was beheaded during WW II for supposedly wanting to kill Hitler. The man's family cannot help clarify the issue since they say he had been pro-Nazi earlier. Other injustices or puzzling omissions come to the fore, such as a German who was against Hitler, survived torture by the SS, and then was not given any state aid when peace was restored. Another sequence shows an extensive U.S. archive of materials that identifies many Nazis and their activities -- but is not available to anyone trying to track down former war criminals. Like other films of this type, the documentary helps to fill in facts about WW II that are little-known, or slow in coming out.

Thomas Hirschhorn – Gramsci Monument

Thomas Hirschhorn, one of the few Swiss artists of world renown, often touches on social wounds with his provocative works. In 2013, Hirschhorn built a monument for Italian philosopher and communist Antonio Gramsci in a public housing project in the Bronx. The contentious artist collaborated with neighborhood residents whose everyday life is impacted by poverty, unemployment and crime. Conflicts and misunderstandings are bound to arise as Hirschhorn’s absolute devotion to art is confronted with the resident’s lack of prospects and fatalistic outlooks. The «Gramsci Monument» becomes a summer-long experiment where diverse worlds collide: blacks and whites, the art elite and street kids, party people and poets, politicians and philosophers. A nuanced film about art, politics and passion.

Frau Mercedes

In Bern, Madame Mercedes has been working for 35 years in her car as a prostitute. An intimate and subtle portrait about ageing as a prostitute, a documentary about a vanishing chapter of habits in Switzerland.

The Making of a Dream

The Making of a Dream is a cinematic essay on stories of dancers. It shows joys and pains from the first steps in an amateur school to the goal to become a principal dancer in a world known ballet company.

Gangbé!

The Gangbé Brass Band, a musical group from Benin, sets out to conquer Lagos, capital of Nigeria.

Soeurs

Plot unavailable

Urs Fischer

Plot unavailable

Vibrato

Plot unavailable

Vor Burgdorf danach

Plot unavailable

Wer sind wir?

Plot unavailable

Pausenlos

Plot unavailable

Bach rencontre Buxtehude

Plot unavailable

Stella ciao

Plot unavailable

Sur les traces des pharaons noirs

Plot unavailable

Markus Raetz

Plot unavailable

Journey to the Safest Place on Earth

Over 350,000 tons of highly radioactive waste and spent fuel rods are in temporary storage on site at nuclear power complexes and at intermediate storage sites all over the world. More than 10,000 additional tons join them every year. It is the most dangerous waste man has ever produced. Waste that requires storage in a safe final repository for hundreds of thousands of years. Out of reach of humanity and other living creatures. The question is, where? Together with Swiss-British nuclear physicist Charles McCombie, who has been searching for a safe final storage site for highly radioactive nuclear waste for thirty-five years, director Edgar Hagen investigates the limitations and contradictions involved in this project of global significance. Supporters and opponents of nuclear energy struggle for solutions whilst dogmatic worldviews are assailed by doubt

Picture of Light

A documentary of an expedition to Churchill, Manitoba to film the Northern Lights.

Zeit der Titanen

Plot unavailable

Cher Monsieur, cher papa

Plot unavailable

Botiza

Plot unavailable

Bouton

Plot unavailable

Like Stone Lions in the Gateway into Night

Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.

Der Imker

A documentary about Ibrahim Gezer, who escaped from war in Kurdistan to Switzerland. All is lost, except his love for beekeeping.

Melodias

Plot unavailable

Le train le plus difficile du monde

Plot unavailable