Directing
A man loses his senses one by one. First he loses the instinct to own property, then his balance - so he can no longer walk - then his sight, then his touch... At the same time, he wants to go to China and become an "exote": a person who finds that the most exotic of countries is the one in which he was born. Based on Étienne Bonnot de Condillac's “Traité des sensations“ and Victor Segalen's “Essai sur l'exotisme“.
Polo is supposed to transport a suitcase full of jewels across the border as a courier—a job he has done a thousand times before. But this time, something goes wrong. Other crooks are hot on Polo's heels. He is kidnapped and forced to hand over the suitcase. In the end, Polo lies on the ground, bleeding to death. Finally, he has time to think about what he did wrong. Hoping to find the reasons for his failure, he reviews the story once again.
Football Inside dives deep into football culture – and makes the locker room its stage. As soon as they put on their jerseys, pros, women, and juniors all take on different roles, with one thing in common: Their love for the game.
Georgia’s former prime minister has found a unique hobby. He collects century-old trees, some as tall as 15-story buildings, from communities along the Georgian coast. At a great expense and inconvenience, these ancient giants are uprooted from their lands to be transplanted in his private garden.
A female-led research team embarks on a quest to uncover the chemical secrets that make plants bloom instantly.
For a hundred years, the former fishing village of Campione d'Italia, an Italian enclave in Switzerland, has drawn enormous wealth from a monumental casino. There is hardly a resident who has not benefited economically or socially from it. But the bankruptcy of this colossus destroys all prospects and autonomy. The reopening gives the village one last chance.
«Nel giardino dei suoni» («In The Garden of Sounds») is a touching, poetic exploration of the relationship between mind, body and sound, and a cinematic journey to the borders of communication. Nicola Bellucci tells the extraordinary story of Wolfgang Fasser, a blind musician and soundscape artist who works with severely handicapped children, helping them to find their place in a world not made for them. On his own way into the darkness, Fasser discovered the world of sounds, a parallel universe to our visual world. His far-reaching explorations of sound’s effect on mind and body led him to the field of music therapy.
Documentary about Svetlana Geier, a Ukranian who has translated the great works of Dostoyevsky into German. First her father ends up in one of Stalin's prison camps, then young Svetlana herself experiences the German invasion. In order to survive she learns German at home in Kiev. She is good and gets work as a translator before ending up in a German camp in 1943. Now, 65 years later, she is a renowned translator who in her twilight years has translated the great works of Dostoevsky. For the first time in all these years, she returns to Kiev together with her granddaughter.
Cash, securities and debt are based on the fact that everyone honors their obligations and gets into debt. Can we free ourselves when money becomes a shackle? Do we serve money or does it serve us?
In 1939, Walter Otto Wyss emigrated to the USA after a tragic car accident. There he developed a revolutionary hybrid automobile that was never produced. After a love affair with an African-American dancer in Los Angeles he lived in Tokyo at the end of the 1950s as a recluse and learned Japanese. He spent the last 30 years of his life alone on Hawaii. Despite many opportunities to fulfil his dreams of freedom, success and security, he can never quite set himself free from Switzerland, his mother and his self-reproach and misses the chance to find happiness. Walter's nephew, director Tobias Wyss, tells the story of his uncle in a personal manner, making use of moving photographs and videos from the family archive. The Zurich director reconstructs the contradictory biography of his uncle in seven episodes.
A film about a photographer's search for the last valid image. Paradoxically, he travels to places where there is hardly any light.
In 1979, a revolution in Iran. In 1980, a revolution in Poland. The fall of the Shah, the “King of Kings,” in Iran. Mass strikes and the foundation of Solidarność (Solidarity) in Poland. What was in the minds of the young women and men who fomented revolution in their own country? What did they think when their revolution was quelled, or – as in Iran – an authoritarian regime was instituted under the name of an “Islamic Republic”?
The filmmaker's sister, Nasreen, a housewife with two children, is married to a traditional and often unavailable husband. Despite the restrictions on women in Iran, she decides to pursue her lifelong dream of singing.
Martin indulged in his excessive use of drugs. He recorded his frenzied life in his diaries while his friend Ivo passionately captured everything on film with his Super 8 camera. Both sought for the absolute – average was not an option. Through the lens of this journal, Ivo Zen tells the story of his generation, a story about friendship and the desire to fly higher than anybody else.
Art is merely a label of no relevance according to the artist Christian Eisenberger. At the age of 40 he has created over 45,000 works. He deposited thousands of them on streets and squares, where anyone could gather them up. He defies galleries, art fairs and museums with his unrestrained production. His art runs rampant, eluding all control. In a milieu that desperately struggles for attention and recognition, Eisenberger again and again asks, "What really constitutes artistic freedom? And does it require artists at all?”
Architects from Europe, America and China are invited to a Chinese provincial town. Within several months, they are to construct a park in Jinhua, intended to form the centre of a new district of that town. Where green fields now flourish and farmers plough the land, investors will soon flock, followed by new inhabitants and political reforms. But the project ends up being drawn out over years. The euphoria of the early stages runs up against a reality in which torn-open earth and the ambitious hopes of politicians, workers and locals are the only manifest features. The film documents the changes leading to the Jinhua Architecture Park - from the laying of the foundation stone to its final opening. In giving all participants in this process an opportunity to comment.
