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.

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

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

Big Little Women

Big Little Women

How can one talk about feminist struggles in a tender way with an enlightened patriarch?

Under the influence of a very personal poetic potion, Nadia Fares transforms the homage to her beloved Egyptian father into a chronicle of the situation of women in Egypt and in Switzerland. She explores the effects of patriarchal tradition as a mirror effect between Orient and Occident.

 

Promotional Partners
RECIF | Tea Room (Fribourg) | Gender Campus | Mampreneures (association suisse des mamans entrepreneurs) | Association suisse pour le droit de la femme | EPFelles | OSAR (Organisation Suisse d’Aide aux réfugiers) | ParMi (Fribourg) (MNA) (Fribourg) | BIF Bureau information Femmes (Lausanne) | CSP (centre social protestant) – Genève | Service jeunesse et cohésion sociale (Yverdon les Bains) | Business and Professional Women Club Genève | Business and Professional Women Club Fribourg | Bureau Lausannois pour les Immigrés Lausanne | Service de la sécurité sociale, secteur intégration (Renens) | Bureau de l’intégration (Vevey) | elisa-asile | Association AMIS (Aigle) | podcast tea-room | Association pour la Promotion des Droits Humains | ACES Association culturelle Egypto-Suisse | Defence for Children (impact days 2021) | Frauenstadtrundgang Zürich | Gosteli Stiftung Archiv zur Geschichte der schweizerischen Frauenbewegung | Männer.ch Schweizerisches Institut für Männer | Swonet Swiss Women Network | womenmatters Blogg Frauen und Karriere | Haus der Religionen – Dialog der Kulturen (Bern) | Die Feministen | Frauenzentrale Zürich | Human Rights Film Festival Zurich | Fem So – Feministischer Verein Kanton Solothurn | Frauenzentrale Aargau | Elisa-asile |

The Last Queen

The Last Queen

Spectacular costume drama from Algeria

Algeria, 1516. The pirate Aroudj Barbarossa, together with King Salim Toumi, drives the Spanish occupiers out of Algiers. But the peace is short-lived: rumour has it that Barbarossa has murdered the king and declared himself ruler. When everyone from the royal court flees, only Queen Zaphira stands up to him. Between history and legend, her rebellion tells of the personal and political turmoil she endures for the sake of Algiers.

The cinema spectacle from Algeria is the first of its kind and reproduces the multilingual and diverse world of the Maghreb at historical sites. Told for the first time from a female perspective, THE LAST QUEEN – EL AKHIRA breaks with tradition and creates space for a woman who becomes a heroine in adversity.

It is a story Algerians have never seen before and they need it to dig deep into their history and culture. – Cineuropa

The debut feature co-directed by Algerian director-actress Adila Bendimerad and French-Algerian director Damien Ounouri – immerses us, swinging between refined court life and bloody battles, royal splendour and fights to the last blood.
to the last blood. – Cineuropa

Co-director/co-writer Damien Ounouri described the film as
a costume drama, and he wasn’t lying. But it felt like so much more. It felt like a good episode of Game of Thrones. – Universal Cinema

The Last Queen (113 minutes) explores under-represented chapters of history and offers ample space for expurgated perspectives and voices. It is an intimate and beautifully shot period piece about a complicated female heroic figure. – High on Films

Invisible Frontliners

Invisible Frontliners

There are jobs without which society would not function. Who are those caretakers, the people who keep everyday life going, who keep the homes clean, provide food, and make it possible for the rest of us to live and work comfortably even during a pandemic?

In Switzerland, there is a basic lack of social recognition for these frontliners. Before, many of them were largely invisible. That has changed. Society today is aware of the value of their work. But what has really changed? And how do these hard workers feel about the attention they suddenly got? Why do they stay in their jobs and what would they change?
The film gives a voice to those that usually remain silent and invisible: a single mother, a young nurse, a sales manager and mother of three, a politically active child care worker and a Portuguese immigrant working as restaurant manager. In a very fine and silent way, harsh realities are addressed and the big topics of these frontliners become close and clear.

Solothurner Filmtage

It Is Not Over Yet

It Is Not Over Yet

At the small retirement home Dagmarsminde, the founding nurse May Bjerre Eiby has no interest in specific dementia diagnoses or medicine, since neither is improving the quality of life for the 11 residents. Instead, May and her staff have developed a new kind of treatment inspired by the methods that Florence Nightingale introduced 150 years ago. The goal is to inspire a complete change in the way people with dementia are treated in the healthcare system, shifting from medicine to care.

Je Suis Noires

Je Suis Noires

SWISS FILM PRIZE

In Switzerland, a country of neutrality, new, unfamiliar voices are being heard. Voices of women who fight for the recognition of structural racism, deconstruct stereotypes and confess their double identity as Swiss and Black. It is in this context that Rachel M’Bon begins her own search for identity. On her way to liberation, she questions her past, her present and holds up a mirror to her country and her peers.

The strength and determination with which Rachel M’Bon confronts her past is the strength of this film, which represents an important step towards opening up a discourse that has been suppressed for too long. Together with filmmaker Juliana Fanjul, the Swiss-Congolese journalist interrogates her country and portrays six protagonists. Each of them tells a story that reflects her own personal path to liberation.

We show the film in combination with the short film ETHEREALITY by Kantarama Gahigiri.
Stranded in space for 30 years. How does it feel to finally come home? A reflection on migration and the sense of belonging.

Kantarama Gahigiri is a Rwandan-Swiss filmmaker. In 2004 she won the prestigious Fullbright Award and moved to New York where she completed her Masters in Film. Her first feature film TAPIS ROUGE was screened and awarded worldwide.

Promotional Partners
Voie F | Gender Campus | #cine | Fembit | baba news | GRA | AfroBasel | Exit Racism Now | Amnesty Schweiz

Becoming Giulia

Becoming Giulia

Giulia Tonelli, principal dancer at the Zurich Opera House, returns from maternity leave. She has to fight to find her place and a new balance, between the competitive and extremely demanding world of an elite ballet company and her new family life. The documentary is an unprecedented immersion in the microcosm of a great opera house from 2019-2021, an intimate and committed look at the journey of a woman who reclaims her own body and herself to be back on stage.

Promotional Partners
Ballettschule für das Opernhaus Zürich | Ballettschule Theater Basel | Musik Akademie Basel | BETA: Verein Berner Tanzschaffende | Balletschool Barbara Bortoli | Tanzbuudä | Ballettschule Luzern | Ballettschule Looser-Weileman | Ballettschule Elena Abramova | Ballett und Tanz- Forum Spitzenschuh | Ma Danza: Schule für Ballett und Moderner Tanz | Tanzwerkstatt Fame | Tanzwerk 101 | Musikschule Kellenberger | Tanzbüro Basel | Studio 1: Dance Without Limits | Musikschule Zürcher Oberland | pilates stube | pilates bern | pilates zürich | true Pilates |