Cinédokké Sagl

1977. Sixteen-year-old Mario lives in a small village in Ticino, Italian-speaking Switzerland. While society around him is shifting in many ways, he experiences his first awkward sentimental approaches, has trouble in school, and constantly clashes with a father who doesn’t seem to get him.

In 1855, a Swiss working-class single mother travels to Brazil, drawn by the promise of a better life but is instead confronted with a system of debt, surveillance and exploitation within a society deeply structured by slavery. Her path crosses with that of Inocência, an enslaved Black woman who possesses healing knowledge, knows the land, and devises her own strategies of resistance.

Three young Afghan refugees spend a hot summer day by a Swiss river. Against a backdrop of lyrical landscapes and wild waters, a new law on migrant returns threatens their longing for a peaceful and secure existence.

In a Swiss mountain village, hikers head out, a fountain splashes reassuringly and a churchwarden prepares a mass. Debut director Valentina Shasivari evokes the calm of this serene landscape with tightly framed shots in contrast-rich black-and-white.