Few places symbolise the dawn of modernity with its expectations and upheavals better than the Jelmoli department store. The director documents the 125-year history from its foundation to its closure at the end of 2024.
Bernard Rambert, “Red Beni”, is one of Switzerland's best-known and most controversial defence lawyers. What conclusions can a person who has spent his entire life fighting for radical change through legal means draw?
The life of 20-year-old Nico from upper class Zurich is all party, sex and drugs when she meets Paco, the front man of a rap band. She finds herself drawn to his independent, creative and profound way of life, so different from her own. With naiveté and infinite self-confidence, she tries to adopt his lifestyle - without anticipating the consequences.
Ruža left Serbia, her country, over 30 years ago and lives in Zurich. Her daily life is a string of repetitive moments until, one day, Ana arrives on the scene and upsets Ruža's painstakingly organized world. A subtle friendship develops between the two strong willed women.
The insurance salesman Vincent Baumann, a cold-blooded careerist and minion of a merciless system, becomes a victim of the very corporations he is representing. Degraded to a henchman he grimly struggles to get back on the job market. He fights to climb the social ladder. In the process he realizes that there are other values than income and success. He decides against his previous ideology and for another human being, for Lisa Sokulowa. They don’t have a future. But they celebrate a small triumph against the dominance of the ruling system.
Croatia, 7th of January 1992: In the middle of the war, a young journalist's body is discovered dressed in the uniform of an international mercenary group. Twenty years later, his cousin Anja Kofmel investigates his story.
For more than one hundred years, the Swiss Social Democratic Party and the trade unions shaped Swiss working-class culture. In the seventies, this culture completely collapsed. The working class of yesteryear are called foreigners. An essay by an immigrant child from a former working class stronghold.
Skalde lives in a small rural community, far from a world that may no longer exist. She is an interloper in her own home, having been born to an ‘outsider’ mother and therefore marked by a social stigma she cannot easily erase. Displaying a loyalty to the codes of the community, she has earned the respect of the village elder. However, when she encounters a mysterious girl in the local woods, Skalde risks everything by befriending her, eventually giving the girl a home.
An epic family saga told by the women around the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Outlines the history of 40 years of the skinhead subculture, beginning with the most recent versions of the culture.
A documentary. David Sieveking takes the advice of his idol, David Lynch and tries out Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation technique.
Angela is a French art student living in Germany who loves to draw comics and creates elaborate tales drawn in a soft and romantic style. One night, Angela meets Yamamoto, a club DJ from Japan, who invites her to come to Tokyo with him. Infatuated with Yamamoto, Angela impulsively agrees, and is soon sharing an apartment with a handful of Western expatriates who work at a nightclub where Japanese businessmen drink, sing karaoke, and date the "hostesses" for a fee.
Year after year hundreds of thousands of fans line the route of the Tour de France, cheering on their heroes and willing them to victory, while millions of viewers worldwide tune in on their televisions. Academy Award-winning director Pepe Danquart, fascinated by the spectacle of the three week race, chose to focus on the courage, the pain and the fear of the riders of the Tour. Training his lens on German superstar sprinter Eric Zabel and his loyal domestique Rolf Aldag, Danquart captures the thrill of the race and the teamwork behind the stars of the peleton. He also shines light on the Tour's supporting cast - the director sportifs, masseurs, and, of course, the wildly enthusiastic fans. Reveling in the stunning landscape - from the Alps to the Pyrenees to the Massif Central to Paris - and with a nice dollop of Le Tour's history, HELL ON WHEELS transcends the sport it celebrates to reveal an astonishing human endeavor.
At an exhibition, graphic designer Stefanie is thrilled by the work of John Heartfield, the inventor of political photomontage 100 years ago. While trying to understand his life on the run, she suddenly finds herself in Heartfield's studio.
Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s.
Two yuppies play mean pranks on those around them until one joke has unexpected consequences.
In April 1978, members of the Groupe Autonome Révolutionnaire (GAR) rob a bank in Zurich with the aim of bringing to light the covert ties between the Swiss financial system and dictatorships in Latin America. Wanting to secure concrete evidence, they film the entire operation.
A wide variety of Iraqis in exile meet at Café Abu Nawas in London, including the architect Amal, the poet Taufiq and the gay IT specialist Muhannad. They all want to finally feel free in London - something that was denied them in their homeland. But adversity threatens...
Maria, a Mexican migrant, is pregnant. Her husband Giorgio is sterile. She conceals the pregnancy from him out of fear he might suspect infidelity. Caught between doubt and longing, both seek tenderness elsewhere. Fascinated by the unknown, their feelings drive them into the depths of love. There, where only trust can prevent them from losing one another.
Ceschi and Stamm's documentary tells the incredible story of Monika Krause, a former East German citizen, who became Fidel Castro's Sexual Education Minister. After 20 years in Cuba, Krause set the Cuban sexual revolution in motion: in favor of a woman's right to sexual fulfillment and legal abortion, and against exclusion of homosexuals, she acquired the title "Queen of Condoms". A film about potent female agitators, staunch macho men and Caribbean love lives.
