Life is Beautiful – Al Haya Helwa

Life is Beautiful – Al Haya Helwa

Palestinian filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly insists on telling stories from his hometown Gaza sharing his own experiences and perspectives, not accepting the boundaries imposed by international politics and rigid bureaucracy. Stuck in the cold and dark arctic of Northern Norway, only able to connect to his family online, he manages to activate his own creativity and the support from his friends to keep up his motto LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.

Follow us #ICarus

Follow us #ICarus

Andreas und Daniel teilen nicht nur eine lebenslange Freundschaft, sondern auch ihre Ausbildung zum Automechaniker in der pittoresken Garage von Herisau. Doch während Andreas in der Welt der Motoren aufblüht, fühlt sich Daniel in seiner Ausbildung gefangen. Sein wahrer Traum ist es, als Influencer die Welt zu erobern. Um spektakulären Content für seine Follower zu kreieren, lässt er sich von Andreas bei waghalsigen Stunts filmen.

Doch in ihrem Streben nach dem nächsten aufregenden Moment verlieren die beiden Freunde den Bezug zur Realität. Auf der Jagd nach dem ultimativen “Thrill” stürzen sie sich in gefährliche Situationen und verfallen immer mehr dem Sog von Drogen. Die Grenze zwischen ihrem eigenen Leben und den inszenierten Abenteuern verschwimmt zusehends.

Inmitten des Rauschs und der sich überschlagenden Ereignisse kommt es zu einem tragischen Zwischenfall, der nicht nur ihre Freundschaft auf die Probe stellt, sondern auch ihr gesamtes Leben auf den Kopf stellt. Während die beiden nach Antworten suchen, erkennen sie, dass ihre Suche nach Extremen nicht nur ihren emotionalen, sondern auch ihren physischen Zustand auf eine harte Probe gestellt hat. Eine Geschichte über Freundschaft, Selbstfindung und die gefährlichen Abgründe, die sich auftun, wenn man die Realität aus den Augen verliert.

Omegäng

Omegäng

Tauche ein „zmitzt“ in die faszinierende Welt unseres Dialekts und entdecke, warum er trotz der Globalisierung weiterhin blüht. Vor 160 Jahren, während des “Eisenbahnzeitalters”, fürchtete die Deutschschweiz den Verlust ihres Dialekts zugunsten des Hochdeutschen. Doch heute erleben wir das Gegenteil – der Dialekt bleibt lebendig und vielfältig.

Begegne herausragenden Mundartkünstlerinnen und Künstlern wie Franz Hohler und Big Zis. Sie und andere Personen aus Wissenschaft, Politik, Musik und Dörfern setzen sich im Film OMEGÄNG auf einzigartige und akribische Weise mit unserem Dialekt auseinander. Von Bühnen über Kellerräume bis zu den majestätischen Alpen – diese Menschen alle tragen dazu bei, dass unsere Sprache weiterhin gedeiht.

Erfahre erstaunliches über die Bedeutung von “omegäng” – einem vergessenen berndeutschen Dialektwort – und komm mit auf eine fesselnden Reise durch die moderne und alpine Deutschschweiz. Triff Menschen, die sich kreativ mit dem Schweizer Dialekt befassen, sei es stöbernd in alten Archiven, wo tausende Flüche schlummern, oder auf den Bühnen unseres Landes, wo Mundart als feministische Poesie messerscharfe Kritik übt, oder in die Dörfer wo “omegäng” noch immer gebraucht wird.

Wir werfen einen faszinierenden Blick auf sprachliche Veränderungen, die einerseits nostalgisch stimmen, andererseits aber auch gesellschaftliche Sprengkraft haben. Sei Teil dieser mitreissenden Reise durch unsere vielfältige Sprachlandschaft!

Franz Hohler – Franz Hohler ist ein Schweizer Schriftsteller, Kabarettist und Liedermacher.

Big Zis – Big Zis ist eine Schweizer Rapperin aus Winterthur im Kanton Zürich.

Pedro Lenz – Pedro Lenz ist ein Schweizer Schriftsteller, der meist in Mundart schreibt und vorträgt.

Alwa Alibi – Alwa Alibi ist eine Berner Rapperin, welche mit Mundart-Rap ihre Gedanken und Erfahrungen teilt.

Cachita – Die Rapperin und Muskerin verbindet in ihren Texten Englisch, Spanisch und Schweizerdeutsch. 

Simone Felber – Mezzosopranistin, Leitung des Jodler:innenchors Echo vom Eierstock

Nadia Zollinger – Betreibt den Podcast «Dini Mundart»: Als Kämpferin für den Dialekt

Markus Gasser – Betreibt den Podcast «Dini Mundart»: Als Kämpfer für den Dialekt

Christoph Landolt – Chefredaktor Schweizerisches Idiotikon

Riverboom (Partners)

Riverboom (Partners)

In 2002, a cautious young graphic designer is taken, against his will, on a complete tour of Afghanistan by two fearless reporters. With a video camera bought at the Kabul bazaar, he will follow them for two months on a wild journey. Or how to find one’s way in life when you’re fearful, anti-militarist and, after the death of your parents, you unwillingly become a war reporter just after 9/11.

If only I could hibernate

If only I could hibernate

Winner of the Audience Award at the Film Festival Diritti Umani Lugano

A poor but prideful teenager, Ulzii, lives in the yurt area of Ulaanbaatar with his family. He is a physics genius and is determined to win a science competition to earn a scholarship. When his mother finds a job in the countryside, she leaves him and his younger siblings to face a harsh winter by themselves. Ulzii will have to take a risky job to look after them all and keep his home heated.

Promotional Partners
Mandach Naran

The Siren

The Siren

1980, Abadan. The capital of the Iranian oil industry is resisting an Iraqi siege. Fourteen-year-old Omid has braved the siege and stayed in the city with his grandfather, waiting for his elder brother to return from the front line. Along with Omid, a gallery of unusual characters have all remained in the city for their own reasons, and each resists in his or her own way. But the noose is tightening as Omid tries to save his loved ones, by embarking them on an abandoned boat he finds in Abadan’s port, that will become his ark.

Disco Boy

Disco Boy

Mesmerizing & Hypnotic – Sofilm

Visually stunning – The Guardian

A prodigious odyssey – Arte

Giacomo Abbruzzese’s hypnotic debut work was greeted as a breath of fresh air at the Berlinale and awarded the Silver Bear for Hélène Louvart’s cinematography. Franz Rogowski’s usual intense acting is in harmony with the examination of the simultaneity of different lifeworlds, blurred boundaries, and the demand for new, contemporary stories in this drama about a foreign legionnaire.

Aleksei is willing to do anything to escape Belarus. He travels to Paris and enlists in the Foreign Legion. He is sent to fight in the Niger Delta, where the young revolutionary Jomo is fighting the oil companies that have devastated his village. While Aleksei looks for a new family in the legion, Jomo imagines becoming a dancer, a disco boy. In the jungle, their dreams and destinies will cross.

Aleksei is a young Belarusian on the run from a past he must bury. In a kind of Faustian pact, he becomes a member of the French Foreign Legion and in return receives French citizenship. Far away, in the Niger Delta, Jomo is a revolutionary activist engaged in armed struggle to defend his community. Aleksei is a soldier, Jomo a guerrilla. Through another senseless war, their fates become intertwined.

What is “otherness” and can you integrate it into your own self as you go through life, crossing borders and being in an ever-changing space, both physically and mentally? Giacomo Abbruzzese’s unconventional thinking and inventiveness catches our eye as he explores such questions through an image-rich narrative and staging full of poetry and fertile tension. Bodies go through trance states that are both revealing and gifting as they create the possibility for communication. Electronic musician Vitalic’s powerful soundtrack accompanies this magical reverie, contributing to the idea that a nightclub is the closest you can get to transcendence, and the ultimate destination for people who point their compass towards the sacred horizon of utopia.

Polish Prayers

Polish Prayers

Hanka Nobis receives the Zurich Film Award for Best Director (30.10.2023). Excerpt from the jury statement: The debut film impressively shows, through the development of its young protagonist, that years of polarisation of the political landscape in Poland have led to a division in society. Thus the film becomes not only a sensitive mirror of a young generation, but also a portrait of an entire nation. With exceptional access, an empathetic camera, fluid editing and a musical concept that springs directly from within the youth movements, the filmmaker creates an uncompromising work that raises many questions and opens up a debate that needs to be conducted not only in Poland. Zurich Film Award

One of the most touching and hopeful documentaries in a long time! – ARTTV https://arttv.ch/film/polish-prayers/

A riveting debut – as illuminating as it is shocking. – FILMUFORIA

A powerful and uncompromising work – and a touching debut, intense and profound without being judgmental. – CINEUROPA

As a traditional Catholic in Poland, 22-year-old Antek holds deeply conservative views. But when he falls in love for the first time, he begins to have doubts – first about the prohibition of premarital sex and finally about the existence of God.

The 22-year-old Antek is destined to become the religious leader of the ultra-conservative Polish Brotherhood. The Brotherhood organises counter-demonstrations to LGBTQI+ events and meets for masculinity rituals in the forest. But when Antek is about to be promoted, he begins to question the moral principles he has spent years fighting for.

Over the course of four years, filmmaker Hanka Nobis accompanies the charismatic and sensitive young man, who identifies less and less with traditional values. In exchange with a constantly changing circle of friends, Antek develops his own opinion on what it means to be a good person.

Promotional partners

CEFAMFamilies arc en cielPinkcrossKath.ch

Golden Seniors

Golden Seniors

Five senior citizens dare to step into the unknown. For 18 months, they will participate in a training based on mindfulness and altruism, which will be measured for a study. The aim is to evaluate the effects of meditation on ageing. The film tells their personal journey and mirrors it with scientific objectivity and the challenges of ageing well in our society. Living longer and longer – yes, but how?

Beyond the adventure of these seniors citizens, the film shows meditation as a way to connect with oneself and one’s surroundings. It illuminates the realities of this path with stumbling blocks, moments of doubt, gratitude, joy and sometimes relief.

Promotional Partners
CHUV Lausanne | CNP Neuchâtel | Ensemble Hospitalier de la Côte | HÔPITAUX UNIVERSITAIRES GENÈVE | Mindfulness Swiss | Pro Senectute Schweiz | UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE |

Plan 75

Plan 75

In a near future, the Japanese government programme “Plan 75” encourages older people to die voluntarily in order to combat the ageing of society. A senior citizen who can no longer live independently, a pragmatic “Plan 75” salesman and a young Filipino caregiver face a life-or-death decision.

Chie Hayakawa’s PLAN 75 is a wonderfully humanistic story that imaginatively uses Japan’s ageing crisis as a template for a dystopian narrative. But PLAN 75 is not all gloom. By following Michiko, Maria and Hiromu on their journey, director Hayakawa celebrates life and all its everyday, small pleasures. The centrepiece within this triptych of stories is Michiko, embodied by the formidable Chieko Baisho, an independent senior citizen who turns to “Plan 75” as her last option.

 PLAN 75 reçoit les trois prix les plus importants au Festival du Film International de Fribourg : Grand Prix, the Critics’ Choice Award et Comundo Youth Jury Award 

Jury Statement

Our big partner: GINMAKU FILM FESTIVAL ZURICH