
17 Jul 2011

The Swiss Account
Bouldering in Switzerland.
In preparation for a feature-length film about windmills, an assistant director travels through the Vaud region to search for locations with windmills. The research leads to a serious engagement with the meaning and purpose of windmills, which has something Don Quixote-like about it in the age of nuclear power stations. The transitions between document and fiction flow constantly and result in a charming and intellectual mixture of seriousness and fun, determination and coincidence, weightlessness and the weight of meaning.
Self - The Actor
17 Jul 2011
Bouldering in Switzerland.
06 May 2021
Sixth-graders have many things on their minds. But they are confronted with an important decision: do they continue their education in secondary school A, B, or C, or do they go to grammar school after all? And what even are those things? How do children deal with the hopes and fears associated with this step?
27 May 2021
The story of three Turkish men. They all grew up in Switzerland and all got deported after various criminal offenses.
16 Apr 2020
A documentary about healers from the Swiss canton of Appenzell.
22 Jan 2020
The film tells of the radical life-search by the Swiss writer Paul Nizon, born 1929 in Bern, Switzerland, who became what “he was meant to be” in Paris. Now 90-year-old, Paul Nizon grants insights into his life and work in a self-ironic, direct manner. The intimate portrait of a great literary outsider emerges, for whom the risk of life and the risk of writing merge into one and the same work of art.
30 May 1947
Starting from the Swiss village of Zermatt, two people and a guide make a perilous ascent of the Matterhorn. Local villagers mount a torchlight rescue of a British couple trapped on the famous mountain. Irving Allen shot footage for this documentary while filming his feature film 'High Conquest'. Filmed in Ansocolor, the documentary won the Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1947.
03 Oct 1942
This Traveltalk series short takes the viewer to sites in Massachusetts. Places visited include Plymouth Rock and harbor; John and Priscilla Alden's 300 year-old house; and the birthplace of Clara Barton, founder of the U.S. Red Cross. We also see Cape Cod windmills and pay a visit to Provincetown, including its picturesque harbor and its artist community.
01 Jan 1951
This Traveltalk short concentrates on Holland's historical relationship with its main industry: growing tulips. The country's windmills are also highlighted.
02 Oct 1934
In this Traveltalk series short we learn that four million ethnic French, German and Italian people live in Switzerland. The Alps and their important part in the country's history is noted. We view vividly-coloured alpine wildflowers which cover the mountain meadows in the spring. We see rushing mountain streams, fed by melting snows, and then learn of colourful alpine chalets and traditional wood-carving amongst other highlights.
17 Sep 2020
The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.
21 Jul 2023
No overview found
16 May 2013
Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?
19 Feb 2014
The Blocher Experience tells the story of Switzerland’s most controversial political leader. It also chronicles the face-to-face encounter between a film-maker and a man of power, through a year of exclusive, up-close interviews and access to his private life.
21 May 2020
A cinematic time capsule with over 1,400 hours of submitted material from all regions of Switzerland gives unknown insights about the life of Swiss people in the politically and socially turbulent summer of 2019.
28 Nov 2012
Zambia's copper resources have not made the country rich. Virtually all Zambia's copper mines are owned by corporations. In the last ten years, they've extracted copper worth $29 billion but Zambia is still ranked one of the twenty poorest countries in the world. So why hasn't copper wealth reduced poverty in Zambia? Once again it comes down to the issue of tax, or in Zambia's case, tax avoidance and the use of tax havens. Tax avoidance by corporations costs poor countries and estimated $160 billion a year, almost double what they receive in international aid. That's enough to save the lives of 350,000 children aged five or under every year. For every $1 given in aid to a poor country, $10 drains out. Vital money that could help a poor country pay for healthcare, schools, pensions and infrastructure. Money that would make them less reliant on aid.
02 Jun 2021
Beneath its reassuring façade, Davos is each year at the heart of the Western and capitalistic world. Every chief of State and everyone who is someone in the money world meets with their peers in the Swiss village. What is really at stake in Davos ? Julia Niemann and Daniel Hoesl create a fascinating observational documentary in which judgement is never handed out and where the dialectics of conflicts matter more than easy and reassuring answers. The film asks the viewer some uncomfortable questions by focusing on challenges that the new global economy poses to the world.
23 Jul 2011
A documentary about experimental drummer Fritz Hauser.
06 Aug 2011
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.
07 Dec 2018
Stand-up comedian Kaya Yanar dissects the allure of Switzerland through the eyes of a German who's lived there.
01 Jan 1974
A study of the psychology of a champion ski-flyer, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.