Meerdolen (2006)

Picture of Light

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

Into Great Silence

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.

I Am Mariam Binladen

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau, tout dire

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Iraqi Odyssey

Tracing the emigrations of his family over more than half a century, this riveting documentary epic from acclaimed expatriate Iraqi filmmaker Samir pays moving homage to the frustrated democratic dreams of a people successively plagued by the horrors of dictatorship, war and foreign occupation of Iraq.

Miriam Goldschmidt – Creator of the In-between

Nearing the end of a long and successful stage career, Miriam Goldschmidt finds her prowess as an actress increasingly on the wane. She struggles to memorize her lines and as her last project with lifelong collaborator, the legendary director Peter Brook, threatens to fall apart, Miriam looks back. Referencing Brook’s ground-breaking book «The Empty Space», she uses an empty rehearsal room in Berlin to invoke her archetypal life journey that took an orphaned black child from post-war Germany to the world’s biggest stages. We «Call Her Miriam» is a bewitching and moving portrait of a great artist living between dream and reality, truth and fction and life and death.

Messi

His teachers, coaches, childhood friends and Barça teammates, together with journalists, writers and prominent figures from the history of football, come together in a restaurant to analyze and pick apart Messi's personality both on and off the field, and to look back at some of the most significant moments in his life. Viewed from Álex de la Iglesia's unique perspective, Messi recreates the player's childhood and teenage years, from his very first steps, with a football always at his feet, through to the decision to leave Rosario for Barcelona, the separation from his family, and the role played in his career by individuals such as Ronaldinho, Rijkaard, Rexach and Guardiola.

Wer sind wir?

How do you cope if things turn out differently than you'd imagined? Helena (19) and Jonas (11) are people in great need of support, putting their parents, families, schools and society to the test. The film breaks down the wall that separates them from our world, shows how language and community develop - and asks the question of who we are.

Barcelona, la rosa de foc

The many faces of Barcelona are portrayed in this documentary, shot in a false sequence shot that goes across the streets, squares, markets and bars of a city that is presented as both conventional and law-breaking, exquisit and shameless, elegant and dispossessed.

The Paris Opera

A behind-the-scenes look at the of how the Paris Opera is run under the direction of Stephane Lissner.

Everything at Once (Paco & Manolo's Gaze)

Paco and Manolo are two Catalan photographers from the outskirts of Barcelona who have been working together for thirty years as if they were a single person, capturing their images in Kink magazine, a very personal photography fanzine with a homoerotic aesthetic of Mediterranean essence.

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.

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.

David Wants to Fly

A documentary. David Sieveking takes the advice of his idol, David Lynch and tries out Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation technique.

Chris the Swiss

Croatia, 7th of January 1992: In the middle of the war, a young journalist's body is discovered dressed in the uniform of an international mercenary group. Twenty years later, his cousin Anja Kofmel investigates his story.

Babylon 2

The first film about second-generation Swiss immigrants: A Turkish ice hockey player explains why, in Switzerland, he could only fall in love with an Italian. A young Italian woman explains why she prefers to rap in English. A hip-hop artist with Hispanic origins fights for his political rights and the director reminisces on how, despite his Arabic roots, he's been persecuted as a Jew. Babylon 2 reflects the rise of a new urban culture in Switzerland, which is instigated by the second generation of immigrants and the help of electronic media.

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.

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.

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.

Bear-Like

At the far end of the Alaskan peninsula, for filmmaker Roman Droux a childhood dream comes true. He discovers together with the bear researcher David Bittner the universe of wild grizzlies. The two adventurists face bears at smelling-distance, experience the struggle for survival of a bear family and witness dramatic fighting scenes. Driven by a desire to explore the unknown the film tells a personal story of wilderness, framed in breathtaking pictures of unique creatures.

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.

Step Across the Border

An avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith.

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.

Winter Nomads

Pascal, 53, and Carole, 28, are shepherds. In the month of November 2010, they embark on their long winter transhumance: four months during which they will have to cover 600 km in the Swiss-French region, accompanied by three donkeys, four dogs and eight hundred sheep. An exceptional adventure is about to begin: they brave the cold and the bad weather day in day out, with a canvas cover and animal skins as their only shelter at night. This saga reveals a tough and exacting profession, requiring constant improvisation and unflinching attention to nature, the animals and the cosmos. An eventful journey with surprise encounters, moving reunions with farmer friends, nostalgic figures of country life that is shrinking away fast. Αn adventure film, a contemporary road movie, a reflection of our current world, which takes us back to our roots and our inner questions.

Work in Progress

An author spends a year and a half filming what happens as a new apartment building is built in a neighborhood of Barcelona.

Imagine Waking Up Tomorrow and All Music Has Disappeared

Imagine waking up tomorrow and all music has disappeared. Just like that. What will remain when it is all gone: CDs, iPods, instruments?

Take the Ball, Pass the Ball

Take the Ball, Pass the Ball is the definitive story of the greatest football team ever assembled. For four explosive years, Pep Guardiola's Barça produced the greatest football in history, seducing fans around the world. In this exclusive, first-hand account of events between 2008 and 2012, the players themselves reveal the tension of the bitter Guardiola-Mourinho rivalry, the emotion of Abidal's fight back from cancer to lift the European Cup and how Messi, the best footballer the world's ever seen, was almost rejected by Barça as a 13-year-old.

Ikaria

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Gambling, Gods and LSD

Filmmaker Peter Mettler embarks on a mission that takes him around the world. He is determined to record the diverse modes of transcendence that people in different cultures adopt in order to live life to the fullest. As he traverses civilization and wilderness and encounters a range of lifestyles and ideas, the filmmaker's mind-expanding trip around the world grows into a poem of images and sounds, reflecting the fragmented but alluring worlds it attempts to capture.

Sex, Maracas & Chihuahuas

A joyful tale filled with music. The rise of radio. The jazz big bands. The legendary clubs and ballrooms. The soundtracks of the great musical films and TV shows. Sex and romance, gangsters, luxury cars and palm trees. From Barcelona to New York, with a stop in Cuba. The birth of Las Vegas. The sound of the maracas. Chihuahuas everywhere. The incredible life story of Xavier Cugat (1900-90).

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.

Balkan Melody

What Swiss director Stefan Schweitert did for accordion music and for yodeling (Accordion Tribe, Cinequest, 2005; Echoes of Home, Cinequest 2008) he now does for traditional Balkan music. This wonderful film is also a love story – and a door into a world of musical wonders.

Daniel Schmid: Le Chat Qui Pense

When director Daniel Schmid grew up, his parents ran a hotel in the Alps, and this singular setting was to influence his film. Rather by coincidence he came to Berlin in the early 1960s and became part of the new German wave. Schmid worked with, among others, Wenders and Fassbinder, for example as an actor in Wender’s The American Friend. He met Ingrid Caven, who was to play a diva in several of his films. This is a documentation of a part of modern European film history and a good analysis of artistry and how it corresponds to the individual behind the camera. A wealth of archival footage brings us close to many directors and actors in Schmid’s circle. If you’ve never seen a Daniel Schmid film, you are sure to want to after watching this portrait of his life.

Stop-Over

In the course of living long months with a group of Iranian illegals in Athens, the director examines this radical choice of pursuing a better life through the most perilous of possibilities: clandestinity.

SAGRADA: El misteri de la creació

Gaudi's Sagrada Familia has been continuously under construction since 1882.

Architecture of Infinity

How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. With the help of architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Álvaro Siza Vieira, artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias, and drummer Sergé “Jojo” Mayer, he tries to make sense of the world and decipher our spiritual experiences using the seemingly abstract concepts of light, time, rhythm, sound, and shape. The superb cinematography turns this contemplative search into a multi-sensory experience.

Mirr

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Jean Ziegler: The Optimism of Willpower

In 1964, Che Guevara asked the young Jean Ziegler to stay in Switzerland to fight in the "Monster brain" capitalist. Since then, Jean Ziegler nerve stops fighting against injustices as a public writer, a speaker and as a Kofi Annan collaborator. During a trip to Cuba, his ideas are challenged by what he discover on the island.

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.

The distances

Omar lived in a very small village in Africa. He arrived in Barcelona in the winter. He would like to learn languages ​​and study, but there are no vacancies in the courses. He would like to work, but he has to wait until he has papers. He would like to get to know the city, find people who trust him, and not feel so alone. He misses his village, his family, and especially his mother. They talk often on the phone, but Omar can't express how difficult everything is here.

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.

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.

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.

Signer's Suitcase

SIGNERS KOFFER is a kind of road movie across Europa. From the Swiss Alps to eastern Poland, from Stromboli to Iceland. Always following the scenery's magically charged contours. Immersing yourself, letting yourself be infected, then travelling on. Roman Signer determines the route that we are moving on and the film improvises along the way. Being on the road also means tracking down the right places. Signer brings them alive using his own personel instruments, brilliantly simple operations full of subtle humour. «Simple» poems being transmitted into space with INSTRUMENTS as gunpowder, fuse, rubber boots, balloons, stool, small table ... and a three wheelded Plaggio. SIGNERS KOFFER is also a journey through the state of mind. A tightrope walk between fun and melancholy. Danger also mental mental danger becomes the stimulus of the senses. Sudden crashes, abrupt chagnes of mood determine the rythm and atmosphere of this cinematic journey.

In the Garden of Sounds

«Nel giardino dei suoni» («In The Garden of Sounds») is a touching, poetic exploration of the relationship between mind, body and sound, and a cinematic journey to the borders of communication. Nicola Bellucci tells the extraordinary story of Wolfgang Fasser, a blind musician and soundscape artist who works with severely handicapped children, helping them to find their place in a world not made for them. On his own way into the darkness, Fasser discovered the world of sounds, a parallel universe to our visual world. His far-reaching explorations of sound’s effect on mind and body led him to the field of music therapy.

Bach rencontre Buxtehude

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El precio de la risa

The life of Paco Martínez Soria (1902-1982), one of the most famous and beloved Spanish actors, both on stage and screen; a comedian, a theatrical producer, an idol for the masses. A celebration of the uncommon gift of making people laugh.

Magic Matterhorn

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

Histèria de Catalunya

A punk documentary which is, at the same time, a history of Catalonia, an analysis of its political situation in 2017, a comic lamentation on the milestones of the Procés —the broken, unsuccessful path started October 1st which eventually should've ended with a true declaration of independence from Spain—, and a chaotic festival of references to pop culture, from Dumbo to Salvador Dalí.

Sagrada Familia - Gaudi's challenge

Combining real footage, archival footage, fiction and 3D modeling, this unseen documentary traces the history of this spectacular and unfinished work.

Tócala Otra Vez, Pep

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Thorberg

Movie about prisoners in prison "Thorberg"

Peret: The King of the Gipsy Rumba

An account of the personal and artistic life of the Spanish singer Peret (1935-2014), the artist who imaginatively mixed various musical styles, such as mambo, tanguillo and rock, to create the gypsy rumba. An epic adventure, from a humble neighborhood of Barcelona to the biggest stages of the world.

Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands

The huge tar sands in Alberta are a potentially profitable resource, but the environmental impact could be heavy and long-term.

Històries de Bruguera

The history of Bruguera, the most important comic publisher in Spain between the 1940s and the 1980s. How the characters created by great writers and pencilers became Spanish archetypes and how their strips persist nowadays as a portrait of Spain and its people. The daily life of the creators and the founding family, the Brugueras. The world in which hundreds of vivid colorful paper beings lived and still live, in the memory of millions, in the smile of everyone.

The Knowledge of Healing

A documentary film about Tibetan traditional medicine.

Tibetan Warrior

The true story of one man's fight for freedom. For more than 60 years Tibetans have been fighting Chinese oppression. But their non-violent struggle appears to be in vain. Now, as a new form of peaceful protest, Tibetans are setting themselves on fire. Loten Namling - an exiled Tibetan and musician living in Switzerland - is deeply disturbed by such self-destructive action. So he sets off from Europe to India, on a one-man mission to meet top politicians, experts and young radicals. He himself becomes increasingly radical and is on the verge of violent protest. Finally he ends up at The Office of the Dalai Lama in India to seek the advice of the exiled Tibetan leader.

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.

Unwanted Witness

This documentary offers a complex portrait of Hollman Morris, the Colombian war journalist whose multiple award-winning news show Contravía is one of the few local current-affairs programs that refuses to pander to President Alvaro Uribe's staunchly authoritative government. While most television viewers in Columbia opt for variety shows and soap operas, citizens in search of suppressed truths tune in to Contravía to hear the latest news about forced disappearances, secret mass graves, and various other atrocities taking place all across the countryside. But when you live and work in the country that Reporters Without Borders claims is one of the most dangerous places in Latin America for a journalist to work, denouncing human rights abuses can be a dangerous game. Yet despite the danger to both himself and his family, Morris remains convinced that the situation in Columbia will never been improved if outspoken media figures like himself simply disappear into exile.

Merlin Nightclub: The Last Dance

Merlin nightclub opened in 1992 in Barcelona and its medieval appearance did not leave anyone indifferent from the first day. After more than 30 years of enjoying the night with its characteristic atmosphere and varied musical selection, the castle was forced to close its doors in January 2023 despite filling the room every weekend. This video immortalizes the place through its regular customers and staff.