CH
Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.
Nov 2001
A romantic comedy centered on two young cooks and a female sommelier working in a famous Zurich luxury restaurant.
Nov 2010
During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?
Jan 1981
Freddy, a Viennese Jew who emigrated to New York after Hitler's invasion, and Adler, a left-wing intellectual originally from Berlin, return to Austria in 1944 as soldiers in the U.S. Army. Freddy falls in love with the daughter of a Nazi, and Adler attempts to go over to the Communist Zone. But with the advent of the Cold War and continuing anti-semitism, the idealism of both characters is shattered as they find themselves surrounded by cynicism, opportunism, and universal self-deception.
Jan 1986
Ruža left Serbia, her country, over 30 years ago and lives in Zurich. Her daily life is a string of repetitive moments until, one day, Ana arrives on the scene and upsets Ruža's painstakingly organized world. A subtle friendship develops between the two strong willed women.
Aug 2006
A documentary film about Tibetan traditional medicine.
May 1997
Melanie is planning the big deal with antique Mayan sculptures. The charming student always spends more money than she earns. To plug the financial hole, she has taken out loans on her beloved grandmother's farm - without his knowledge and with two different banks at the same time. But Willi Hubacher from the cantonal bank and private banker Doctor Tobler are on to her. They give Melanie six weeks to pay back the 160,000 francs - otherwise the farm will be put up for auction, and Melanie's flatmate Kolumbus finally gets the antiques delivered. Melanie already knows a buyer: her admirer, the French ambassador.
Nov 2005
Odyssey of the fortune-teller Daniele von Arb who, aged sixteen, joined the revolutionary underground and made the headlines as a top Swiss terrorist.
Nov 2000
Four kids - Eugen, Wrigley, Bäschteli and Eduard - leave for an adventure around Switzerland, searching for the fabulous treasure of Titicaca Lake, discovered by Fritzli Bühler.
Sep 2005
In a village in eastern Turkey, tales of the economic success of Turks in Switzerland inspire Haydar to convince his wife Meryem that they must go. He sells their livestock and small plot of land in exchange for passage for two. He wants to leave their seven children in the care of the eldest and his parents; his father advises him to take one son to be educated in Europe. Will anyone reach the land of promise?
Sep 1990
Groundbreaking psychiatrist and author Elisabeth Kübler-Ross dedicated her career to working with the incurably ill. In this intimate documentary filmed near the end of her life, Kübler-Ross relates her life story, from childhood to her final years. Friends, family members and colleagues weigh in with insightful observations and share their memories of this remarkable woman whose innovative concepts helped spawn the field of thanatology.
Jan 2003
Sensing their relationship is crumbling, Christian avoids celebrating Christmas with his girlfriend Julia and heads for Paris.
Sep 1995
A comprehensive history of European Jazz, exploring the origins of the US-influenced Jazz clubs after the Second World War, the first steps independent of American jazz and the various changes of direction that have repeatedly occurred in European jazz in the search for that "own voice" that European jazz musicians have helped to form. Featuring the great masters of European jazz such as Chris Barber, Jan Garbarek, Juliette Gréco, Stefano Bollani and Till Brönner, to name but a few.
Nov 2006
Documentary about the first human to donate his body to science so that it could be studied in the form of a 3D database of the entire anatomy that is available to view online. Convicted killer Joseph Paul Jernigan donated his body to science shortly before he was executed in 1993 and this documentary examines what took place after his death by lethal injection.
The filmmaker Lenz has left his native Berlin for the Vosges to research the story behind Georg Büchner's novel fragment Lenz. But he soon trades the Alsatian landscape for higher altitudes and more emotional territory: a reunion with his estranged wife Natalie and their son Noah in the Swiss Alps. Like his literary counterpart, the modern-day Lenz follows the Romantic motto: Genius writes its own rules. Against a background of kitsch global tourism - provided by the authentic Zermatt locations - Thomas Imbach's Lenz portrays an unconventional family and a man struggling between euphoria and desperation.
During the summer of 1968, students from all over Mexico gathered in the capital to demand democracy. The Olympic Games were about to be held and the government, chaired by Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, offered a brutal response in the form of repression, causing hundreds of deaths.
Jan 2004
Filmmakers Nicolaus Humbert and Werner Penzel examine the nature of nomadic existence in this documentary, from the literal nomads of North Africa to the more metaphorical kind of wanderer, such as American poet and ex-pat Robert Lax. Humbert and Penzel focus especially on the nomad's paradoxical ability to fully inhabit every moment while remaining coolly detached from specific locales and anxious thoughts about the past or future.
Nov 1995
Claudia is a talented girl who is about to embark on a career as an opera singer. However, an incident of purse theft will change everything, because it will bring Paul back to a life that the young woman had planned for.
Jan 1997
In Dichterliebe (2000), a film by Oliver Herrmann based on Robert Schumann’s song-cycle of the same name, the boundaries between song recital and reality blur. The chosen setting – a night club in the centre of Berlin – creates the intimate, dark salon atmosphere in which the songs might also have been performed at the time they were written. Returning to origins in this way, the film departs from the concert atmosphere in which song-recitals are normally performed nowadays.
Dec 2000
Marcel Huber, an amiable family man without much assertiveness, accidentally takes his wife Jasmin and children Nicole and Sämi on vacation to wicked Amsterdam instead of sunny Rome. To make matters worse, their hotel turns out to be a lousy flophouse. The house is in trouble and they are in danger of having to cancel their vacation. In his futile search for a new place to stay, Marcel meets the self-confident Dutchman Jaap. He finds him a good hotel in no time at all. Marcel is very impressed by Jaap, who seems to master life in every situation. Marcel wants to be like him. Jaap soon gives the Swiss family man the opportunity to become an investor in a new nightclub project.
Nov 2004