Writing
Heinz Bütler interviews Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) late in life. Cartier-Bresson pulls out photographs, comments briefly, and holds them up to Bütler's camera. A few others share observations, including Isabelle Huppert, Arthur Miller, and Josef Koudelka. Cartier-Bresson talks about his travels, including Mexico in the 1930s, imprisonment during World War II, being with Gandhi moments before his assassination, and returning to sketching late in life. He shows us examples. He talks about becoming and being a photographer, about composition, and about some of his secrets to capture the moment.
Dieter Roth was an artist who combined art and life in a unique way. He painted, drew, printed, wrote, filmed and made music. He created his own universe in which he turned all materials, no matter how banal or ephemeral, into art. The film "Dieter Roth" is conceived as an inner and outer journey, just as Dieter Roth lived, worked, taught, learned, loved and suffered while traveling. The starting point is his works, including videos and films in which he himself acts - friends and companions will also accompany this cinematic journey, above all his son Björn, who has worked with him for the last 20 years.
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Like thousands of other Cubans, Miriam Martinez and her family would like to emigrate. However, as the daughter of a man who made a substantial contribution to the success of the Cuban revolution, it is not an easy decision for her to make.
While managers of Swiss banks in the USA ruefully apologize for their tax evasions practices and customer data is disclosed to the American authorities, Rudolf Elmer, former auditor at bank Julius Bär, is indicted for violating the Swiss banking secrecy law on the Cayman Islands. Rudolf Elmer: from insider to critic.
Zurich-born Hugo Koblet was the first international cycling star of the post-war period. He was a stylist on the bicycle and in life, and a huge heartthrob. Koblet had a meteoric rise and won the Giro d'Italia in 1950. Once he had reached the zenith of his career, Koblet was put under pressure by overly ambitious officials and ended up ruining his health with drugs. In 1954, he married a well-known model and they became a celebrity dream couple. After his athletic career ended, Koblet began to lose his footing. Threatened by bankruptcy, he crashed his Alfa into a tree.
The story of a great friendship between Bruno Balz and Michael Jary. The most successful duo in schlager and film music has shaped German-language popular culture for five decades. The wild twenties, then cinema glamour and Gestapo imprisonment, new beginnings, and swinging sixties - their songs are still alive today.
Claude, a militant anarchist, is caught stealing and is shot by a policeman while fleeing the scene. Dodo, a hairdresser, is hit by one of the stray bullets. They meet in the realm of the dead and together they visit familiar places and their loved ones. By debating their past with each other, they become close and fall in love. Because of their feelings they get the chance to return to life for twelve hours in order to prove the depth love they share.
Robert Tanner is a popular, courteous grocer in the provinces. No one believes the unassuming man to be malicious. And yet Tanner is seething. One night, out of the blue and with a strange calm, he kills first his wife Edith and then his young son Beni. The next morning, he leaves the place of horror with a strange feeling of liberation. On his "journey" he reveals himself to a strange woman and wants to face the press.
Max Frisch was the last big Swiss intellectual widely respected as a “voice” in its own right – a character hardly found today. The film retells Frisch’s story as a witness of the unfolding 20th century, wondering if such “voices” are needed at all, or if we could do without them.
In 1881 Ludwig of Bavaria goes on a cruise on a Swiss lake. He takes with him a famous actor, Josef Kainz, to act out the scenes from a story which took place on the lake, at the actual locations.
A documentary feature about architect Santiago Calatrava.
The film traces the mysterious story of the Indian elephant RAJA, who was sent on an adventurous journey from the forests of Kerala to Vienna around 1550, via Lisbon. Gandhi activist P. V. Rajagopal's explorations along the route uncover surprising facts and awaken fascinating associations. We witness the capture of the little elephant, its training, its work in the forest and its performances at temple festivals - until it is chosen as a status symbol by European rulers. A story of appropriation that continues to this day.
By coincidence rather than by design, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann makes a sensational discovery in the spring of 1943. He realizes that he is dealing with a powerful molecule that will have an impact that reaches far beyond the scientific world. THE SUBSTANCE is an investigation into our troubled relationship with LSD, told from its beginnings to today.
A documentary. David Sieveking takes the advice of his idol, David Lynch and tries out Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation technique.
Documentary about a German Luftwaffe fighter pilot, Franz von Werra, the only German soldier of the Second World War who managed to escape from captivity as a prisoner of war and return to Germany.
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.
