Balifilm(1997)

Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands(en)

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

Saint Maud(en)

Having recently found God, self-effacing young nurse Maud arrives at a plush home to care for Amanda, a hedonistic dancer left frail from a chronic illness. When a chance encounter with a former colleague throws up hints of a dark past, it becomes clear there is more to sweet Maud than meets the eye.

The Villainess(ko)

A young girl is raised as a killer in the Yanbian province of China. She hides her identity and travels to South Korea where she hopes to lead a quiet life but becomes involved with two mysterious men.

Perfect Days(ja)

Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.

EO(pl)

The world is a mysterious place when seen through the eyes of an animal. EO, a grey donkey with melancholic eyes, meets good and bad people on his life’s path, experiences joy and pain, endures the wheel of fortune randomly turn his luck into disaster and his despair into unexpected bliss. But not even for a moment does he lose his innocence.

Marlowe(en)

Private detective Philip Marlowe becomes embroiled in an investigation involving a wealthy Californian family after a beautiful blonde hires him to track down her former lover.

Millennium Mambo(zh)

Vicky recalls her romances with her exes Hao Hao and Jack in the neon-lit clubs of Taipei.

Rich Hill(en)

If you ever find yourself traveling down Interstate 49 through Missouri, try not to blink—you may miss Rich Hill, population 1,396. Rich Hill is easy to overlook, but its inhabitants are as woven into the fabric of America as those living in any small town in the country. This movie intimately chronicles the turbulent lives of three boys living in said Midwestern town and the fragile family bonds that sustain them.

Hounds of Love(en)

When Vicki Maloney is randomly abducted from a suburban street by a disturbed couple, she soon observes the dynamic between her captors and quickly realises she must drive a wedge between them if she is to survive.

El Sur(es)

A woman recalls her childhood growing up in the North of Spain, focusing on her relationship with her father.

The Laundromat(en)

When her idyllic vacation takes an unthinkable turn, Ellen Martin begins investigating a fake insurance policy, only to find herself down a rabbit hole of questionable dealings that can be linked to a Panama City law firm and its vested interest in helping the world's wealthiest citizens amass larger fortunes.

Raoul Taburin(fr)

If anyone knows anything about bikes, it’s Raoul Taburin, official bicycle dealer of Saint Céron, a lovely village in the South of France. But Raoul has a terrible secret: he has never been able to keep his balance on a bike without using stabilisers. His childhood and teenage years were spent trying to overcome his flaw - in vain. All attempts to tell his secret have also failed. Nobody believes him. When photographer Hervé Figougne moves to Saint Céron, the two men become fast friends. And when Figougne offers to photograph Raoul riding a racing bike along a mountain precipice, the moment of truth has arrived. He does all he can to avoid the photo shoot. But everything goes against him and he finally has to accept his destiny. “At least”, he thinks, “people will have to believe me”. But for Raoul Taburin, things are never that simple...

The Mayor of Rione Sanità(it)

Antonio Barracano is a respected man among the Neapolitan underworld, keeping order and administering justice according to his own criteria, beyond the law. One day he's faced with a dilemma after a young man asks him permission to kill his father.

Parasite(ko)

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

Pecker(en)

A Baltimore teenager who picks up a second-hand camera starts snapping his way to stardom, soon turning into a nationwide sensation, with a fateful choice between his life and his art.

Trauma(es)

Four friends visit a rural locality of Chile, are brutally attacked by a man and his son. After not finding help in the town, they decide to confront these men with the help of a pair of policemen. But in this way, they will discover that their attackers have in their blood the direct legacy of the darkest period of Chilean history and will have to face the most brutal enemy.

A Real Job(fr)

Benjamin is a PhD student without scholarship support. Under the pressure of his parents, and in need of money, he becomes a substitute teacher in a middle school. Without training nor experience, and facing a declining public educational system, he discovers how tough this job can be. Hopefully, his supportive and committed colleagues will lead him to take a fresh look at the profession.

Marriage Story(en)

A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One(en)

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the world's fate at stake and dark forces from Ethan's past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan must consider that nothing can matter more than his mission—not even the lives of those he cares about most.

Get In(fr)

When the Diallo family return home from their holiday, they find the locks have been changed and the new occupants maintain they are in "their home". With no one to turn to, patriarch Paul gets closer to Mickey, a shady local man with a penchant for all things extreme and illegal. Soon the once anti-violent teacher is approaching the point of no return…

Jean Ziegler: The Optimism of Willpower(fr)

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.

Queen of Condoms(es)

Ceschi and Stamm's documentary tells the incredible story of Monika Krause, a former East German citizen, who became Fidel Castro's Sexual Education Minister. After 20 years in Cuba, Krause set the Cuban sexual revolution in motion: in favor of a woman's right to sexual fulfillment and legal abortion, and against exclusion of homosexuals, she acquired the title "Queen of Condoms". A film about potent female agitators, staunch macho men and Caribbean love lives.

Illégitime(fr)

Gyrischachen - von Sünden, Sofas und Cervelats(en)

A high-rise apartment built in the 1960s provides housing for 2500 people from 42 nations. Separated from the city by a river and bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, everyone attempts to live and survive in their own way. Foreigners who have a go at being Swiss, and Swiss who observe with scepticism. They meet in the corner shop run by an Iraqi living in exile, send their kids to a children’s club managed by a missionary, and old drinking mates meet regularly over a beer in the neighbourhood’s only bar. Despite all the differences, they are rather proud of the fact that they come from here.

The Laundry Room(fr)

The key to the communal laundry room in the block of flats on the Rue de Genève 85 in Lausanne serves a much greater function than merely unlocking the door. This encounter between a symbol of typical Swiss mentality with a penchant for order and the tenants who have been housed here by the city’s social services department is not something to be taken for granted. Although the laundry room is normally located in the cellar, the tenants in this building share a tiny laundry room off the entrance hall because the cellar is reserved for prostitution. To maintain order and cleanliness, the landlord hires Claudina, a new “laundry woman”.

Special Flight(fr)

Switzerland still carries out special flights, where passengers, dressed in diapers and helmets, are chained to their seats for 40 hours at worst. They are accompanied by police officers and immigration officials. The passengers are flown to their native countries, where they haven't set foot in in up to twenty years, and where their lives might be in danger. Children, wives and work are left behind in Switzerland. Near Geneva, in Frambois prison, live 25 illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. They are offered an opportunity to say goodbye to their families and return to their native countries on a regular flight, escorted by plain-clothes police officers. If they refuse this offer, the special flight is arranged fast and unexpectedly. The stories behind the locked cells are truly heartbreaking.

Desert: Who Is the Man?(en)

In their very own ways, scientists, artists and wandering souls search in the inhospitable and mythical desert landscape for the meaning of life.

Lucie et Maintenant(fr)

In May of 1982 Julio Cortázar, the Argentinean writer and his companion in life, Carol Dunlop set out in their VW bus on a journey along the highway from Paris to Marseille that, for each of them, was to be their final one. Twenty-five years later, Océane Madelaine and Jocelyn Bonnerave set out to undertake the journey again.

Zen for Nothing(de)

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.

Like Stone Lions in the Gateway into Night(fr)

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.

Into Great Silence(de)

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.

Frau Mercedes(de)

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.

Thomas Hirschhorn – Gramsci Monument(en)

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.

Der Imker(de)

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

Journey to the Safest Place on Earth(de)

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(en)

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

Markus Raetz(de)

Daniel Schmid: Le Chat Qui Pense(de)

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.

Max Frisch, Citoyen(de)

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.

Brother's Body(fr)

(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.