Mein Leben und der Notenschnitt

Sixth-graders have many things on their minds. But they are confronted with an important decision: do they continue their education in secondary school A, B, or C, or do they go to grammar school after all? And what even are those things? How do children deal with the hopes and fears associated with this step?

The Alps - Climb of Your Life

In 1966, John Harlin II died while attempting Europe's most difficult climb, the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland. 40 years later, his son John Harlin III, an expert mountaineer and the editor of the American Alpine Journal, returns to attempt the same climb.

Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner

A study of the psychology of a champion ski-flyer, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.

Ueli Steck - Speed, Der schnellste Mann am Berg

He climbed solo, without a rope, the north face of the Eigers in 2h47. Below him the rock wall steigen über 1000 Meter ab. Mehr Ueli Steck, the lone wolf, does not lose his temper. For a year, Steck has meticulously prepared this record of less than three hours. The portrait of an extraordinary man who takes us on a journey to the most beautiful and challenging peaks in the world.

Eldorado

Drawing inspiration from his personal encounter with the Italian refugee child Giovanna during World War II, Markus Imhoof tells how refugees and migrants are treated today: on the Mediterranean Sea, in Lebanon, in Italy, in Germany and in Switzerland.

Nemesis

The film explores the destruction of a unique train station in Zurich and the construction of the new prison and police centre in its place. From the perspective of the filmmaker’s window, and with testimony from prisoners awaiting deportation, the film probes how we deal with the extinction of history and its replacement with total security.

Hexenkinder

The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.

White Winter Heat

Turn up the heat this winter and catch fire with some of the most extreme skiers of the time as they burn up the slopes. Featuring skiers and riders like Scot Schmidt, Tom Day, Cindy Nelson, Tom Jungst, plus many more, Warren Miller's White Winter Heat takes you on an adventure to places like Kooteney National Park in Canada, Verbier Switzerland, New Zealand, and Vail. Grab your skis and find out how to scorch up the slopes even during the coldest, snowiest winter days.

Stealing Africa

Zambia's copper resources have not made the country rich. Virtually all Zambia's copper mines are owned by corporations. In the last ten years, they've extracted copper worth $29 billion but Zambia is still ranked one of the twenty poorest countries in the world. So why hasn't copper wealth reduced poverty in Zambia? Once again it comes down to the issue of tax, or in Zambia's case, tax avoidance and the use of tax havens. Tax avoidance by corporations costs poor countries and estimated $160 billion a year, almost double what they receive in international aid. That's enough to save the lives of 350,000 children aged five or under every year. For every $1 given in aid to a poor country, $10 drains out. Vital money that could help a poor country pay for healthcare, schools, pensions and infrastructure. Money that would make them less reliant on aid.

Naître Svetlana Staline

In 1967, in the middle of the Cold War, Joseph Stalin's only daughter goes to the American embassy in New Delhi and asks for asylum. Svetlana leaves behind her country and her two children. Hunted by the press, the KGB, and many admirers, the woman, nicknamed the Kremlin princess, will never cease to flee. From the summit of the Soviet empire to the solitude and poverty of her last years in a Wisconsin home, Gabriel Tejedor traces the destiny of a resolutely free woman, at the very heart of the century and its geopolitical challenges.

La séparation des traces

Essay on the epic story of an ordinary man, a filmmaker, born in the beginning of the Second World War. From 1942 to 2016, his personal story and the world history, the history of his films, of cinema and the images that inspired him. Life and creation entangled, untangled, intertwined, jostled together. From his childhood to his first steps as an artist. From the distant war to the war against everyone, from the dreamed revolution to the consumer society that ruins your dreams like Coca Cola dissolves your bones.

Max Bill: Das absolute Augenmass

The film about Max Bill (1908-1994) moves between the dynamic fields of art, aesthetics and politics. Max Bill was probably the most important swiss artist of the 20th century and the most famous student to come out of the legendary Bauhaus in Dessau. He was an ardent anti-fascist and all his avant-garde work as an artist, sculptor, architect and typographer showed a social responsibility and environmental awareness right through his life. His views have become incredibly topical.

Fußball Weltmeisterschaft 1954

At the 1954 FIFA World Cup in Switzerland, we see the red-hot favourites Hungary, led by the legendary Ferenc Puskás eventually beaten by West Germany 3-2 in a classic final.

Für immer Sonntag

Welcome to “the prime of life”. All his life, Rudy has worked hard for the firm, and for the family. But now, everything is about to change: Rudy retires. No alarm clock, no meetings, no travels to distant countries to set the pace. Shopping, cooking, gardening, and the daily routines of marital bliss will now fill his schedule. Rudy was actually looking forward to it, to the next phase. But as he soon realizes, “the prime of life” is a wild ride on an emotional rollercoaster. Retirement is not for cowards.

Eine vo dene

Bern, 1980: A caleidoscopic portrait of Swiss urban life in the early 1980s.

Inside DPD

Der grosse Kanton

Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?

Gyrischachen - von Sünden, Sofas und Cervelats

A high-rise apartment built in the 1960s provides housing for 2500 people from 42 nations. Separated from the city by a river and bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, everyone attempts to live and survive in their own way. Foreigners who have a go at being Swiss, and Swiss who observe with scepticism. They meet in the corner shop run by an Iraqi living in exile, send their kids to a children’s club managed by a missionary, and old drinking mates meet regularly over a beer in the neighbourhood’s only bar. Despite all the differences, they are rather proud of the fact that they come from here.

Switzerlanders

A cinematic time capsule with over 1,400 hours of submitted material from all regions of Switzerland gives unknown insights about the life of Swiss people in the politically and socially turbulent summer of 2019.

Vol spécial

Switzerland still carries out special flights, where passengers, dressed in diapers and helmets, are chained to their seats for 40 hours at worst. They are accompanied by police officers and immigration officials. The passengers are flown to their native countries, where they haven't set foot in in up to twenty years, and where their lives might be in danger. Children, wives and work are left behind in Switzerland. Near Geneva, in Frambois prison, live 25 illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. They are offered an opportunity to say goodbye to their families and return to their native countries on a regular flight, escorted by plain-clothes police officers. If they refuse this offer, the special flight is arranged fast and unexpectedly. The stories behind the locked cells are truly heartbreaking.