Mathias Gnädinger
When Hans looks back, he must say: That was a good life! He saw the world, loved his wife Martha and yes, two, three things went wrong. But that doesn't need to be talked about. And now? Two years ago Martha died, Hans can barely manage his daily routine anymore, and after a visit to the vet his beloved dog Miller doesn't return home. Hans is tired. Basically he can't be bothered anymore. He wants to die. But one doesn't talk about this. At best maybe with Willi, his friend. He trusts in him, he considers him as his ally, who should help him implement his plan...
A daft road movie about two aging thesps in search of Klopfenstein himself.
Hardly back from America in her home village, the young mountain guide Andrea Stamm is called to a rescue operation. The wife of the contractor Baumberger has an accident. A murder? The whole village mourns, but Andreas's father Robert Stamm can not believe in an accident. The former police officer, who was sent against his will in early retirement, is convinced that Baumberger killed his wife. After initial hesitation, Andrea gives credence to her father's suspicions and begins to investigate. The television movie Steinschlag is an exciting Swiss crime drama based on the novel by Emil Zopfi.
In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.
Franz Engi returns to his hometown after being away for 30 years. A lot of things have changed in that time. There are only few families with children left in the village and that is why the school is about to be closed down. Franz decides to save the school and teacher Eva's job in a very unusual way....
Roni Beck is a man whose only thought in life is to become a professional comedian, but who due to his lack of success must live hidden in his mother's appartment in an old people's home, continuing to believe firmly that his day in the limelight will come. One day Serge Grätzer, the director of the old people's home, discovers Roni, and makes him help out with the work. Serge then decides to take a hand in Roni's career, embezzling money to launch the budding comedian. Once again however success eludes Roni. In the end Serge decides to fulfil his own secret longings to be on the stage. This leads to a row between the two men. Despite a reconciliation, they never again appear together on the stage. And when Serge's embezzlement is discovered he has to flee with the police at his heels and the home has to be closes. In the end, Roni persuades Mr. Klein, an eccentric old man who likes to play the stock market, to save the home with the millions he has stashed away.
A group of actors making their way to Rome ends up losing its way due to the fog, the darkness, the ice and their own feelings of guilt, suddenly getting completely lost in the hills.
A battle-scarred, has-been Hungarian cop, tormented by his memories of accidentally killing an innocent woman in his custody, enters into a Faustian pact in which he trades his soul for a handful of "magic" bullets that always hit the mark. A mysterious and mythical story.
Senator Isaak Kohler shoots and kills Professor Winter in a crowded restaurant, while Winter is dining with the struggling idealistic young lawyer, Felix Spat. Kohler puts up no defense and is sentenced to twenty years. Kohler then gets his daughter Helene to pay the reluctant Spat to reinvestigate the case, on the assumption that Kohler is innocent. The newspapers pick up on this and begin to question whether Kohler was wrongly convicted.
In 1939, after barely escaping the Nazis, a Gypsy family returns to Switzerland only to be torn apart by racial persecution in the benign guise of children's welfare. This fictionalized story of Jana, an eight-year-old Gypsy girl snatched from her parents and consigned to a life of orphanages and bleak foster homes, is based on a little-known chapter of Swiss history: From 1926 to 1972, the state-supported Pro Juventute, a children's aid foundation, forcibly removed some 700 Gypsy children from their families, in order to sever the ties with their culture and assimilate them to a "better way of life." The underlying aim was to preempt a new generation's caravans from following their nomadic traditions along Switzerland's country lanes.
In a village in eastern Turkey, tales of the economic success of Turks in Switzerland inspire Haydar to convince his wife Meryem that they must go. He sells their livestock and small plot of land in exchange for passage for two. He wants to leave their seven children in the care of the eldest and his parents; his father advises him to take one son to be educated in Europe, as economic insurance. The three set off for Istanbul, Milan, and Switzerland, stowing away on a ship. At Lake Como, they pay the rest of their money to unprincipled men who abandon them at an Alpine pass before a blizzard. Father and son are separated from Meryem. Will anyone reach the land of promise?
It's 1922. A weather observer and his wife live in a remote cabin high in the Swiss Alps. As this drama begins, they are being joined by a third person, an Austrian who coveted the job the Swiss man had won in this bleak location. Not only that, but he also has his eyes on the Swiss man's lovely wife. The Austrian has charm, so he wins some hospitality from the couple. The three live together for a little while, but the rivalry between the two men soon erupts with tragic consequences.
It is difficult these days to imagine that elementary school education was instituted by anyone at all. In fact, Swiss experimental educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) laid the groundwork for universal elementary school education and developed many of the educational theories and techniques in use even in the present day. This film focuses on a critical period in Pestalozzi's development of his educational theories, when he was running a boarding school in a disused convent for impoverished village children in the French part of Switzerland. At the time, Pestalozzi (Gian Maria Volonte) was regarded as a strange renegade, and it had only been with great difficulty that he was able to persuade even the poorest parents that his efforts to feed, clothe, and educate their children might be beneficial to them. Most of the story is told in flashbacks, narrated by one of his friends and supporters.
Julia and Romeo are two disenchanted lovers who want to break up but are unwilling to suffer the pain. After a nasty fight, Romeo storms off and unsuccessfully vents his frustration with a black prostitute. While visiting the ramshackle brothel, he sees a strange man, who may be a government official, handing over a huge wad of money. Later, he and Julia reunite and go to an upscale golden anniversary party. There a handsome American flirts with Julia. After yet another row, Romeo and Julia retire to the balcony for a love scene. Unfortunately, their making up is interrupted by a sudden power outage. When the lights go back on, Romeo finds the knifed corpse of the party's hostess at his feet. Naturally, he's accused of the crime, but before the other partygoers can get him, he and Julia flee into the Berlin summer night. Their strange series ensuing adventures comprise the rest of the film.
During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?
Without knowing it, Alfred and Julia live in a land of pure invention. It is the richest and most beautiful land in the world. From a height, this land looks like a piece of felt, from close up like a clean and tiny park. The footpaths are lined with benches and the streets with banks. Alfred and Julia have been married for 8 years, are childless, and live on the 16th floor of a new building. Thanks to their various crises, they have got to know each other somewhat better, but their most outstanding characteristic remains their mediocrity. On Friday, August 12th 1977, a mysterious epidemic breaks out in their country. The mass media ensure that the news is widely broadcast. The authorities order a ban on information, but those concerned break their imposed silence. On Sunday evening, it becomes known that the epidemic was nomore than a kind of "dress rehearsal" for a real emergency. Alfred and Julia continue to live in a land of pure invention - but now they are conscious of the fact.
Rainer von Hessen and Niki de Saint Phalle met after he saw a photo of HON, the 1966 installation for Moderna Museet Stockholm, in a German magazine. Their collaboration began when Saint Phalle first designed the costumes and sets to Aristhophanes’s LYSISTRATA, directed by Hessen (then known under the stage name Diez). Thereafter, Hessen co-authored and directed her play ICH, which was performed at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1968.
