Pio Corradi

Almost 50 years ago, women and men all over the word dreamed of changing the world. What is left today of the expectations and the hopes of the people that flooded the streets? Not much, unfortunately. The filmmaker examines episodes from his own life, trying to understand how they fit—if they do at all—with the major changes of the world that hint all at a catastrophe in the waiting.

Wearing heavy rubber boots, Fränz Röösli climbs atop his charcoal pile and starts poking holes into what he calls the “Grind” – the “head” or dome of the pile, which reaches four meters above ground. White smoke rises from the holes, curling around the charcoal burner to the whims of the wind before it is carried off into the dark of night. In calm, stunning images, the documentary “Köhlernächte” by Robert Müller draws the viewer into the archaic world of commercial charcoal burning in Switzerland’s Napf region.

A documentary about Swiss photographer and artist Walter Pfeiffer.

Thomas Hirschhorn, one of the few Swiss artists of world renown, often touches on social wounds with his provocative works. In 2013, Hirschhorn built a monument for Italian philosopher and communist Antonio Gramsci in a public housing project in the Bronx. The contentious artist collaborated with neighborhood residents whose everyday life is impacted by poverty, unemployment and crime. Conflicts and misunderstandings are bound to arise as Hirschhorn’s absolute devotion to art is confronted with the resident’s lack of prospects and fatalistic outlooks. The «Gramsci Monument» becomes a summer-long experiment where diverse worlds collide: blacks and whites, the art elite and street kids, party people and poets, politicians and philosophers. A nuanced film about art, politics and passion.

A woman confronts her past – and invents her future. Seventy-six-year-old Elise knows exactly how she will spend the final years of her life: living with Paul, to whom she has been happily married for 50 years, in their villa on Zürichberg till her last breath, and tenderly cared for by Angela, their faithful housekeeper. But then Angela is discovered by the theatre and hired for a stage play. Paul hits a man with his '68 Maserati and subsequently becomes friends with him; Elise passionately kisses a young veterinarian.

On the shores of the Gulf of Finland, the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples originated a singing tradition of mysterious power called the Regilaul. These songs are the roots of Estonia’s renowned singing culture. Based on the continuous repetition of eight-syllable verses, they produce a haunting sound able to connect the fleeting present with the eternal circle of life. Against the stunning setting of modern Estonia, this film explores how Regi songs still fire the imagination today, weaving together people and nature through song.

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.

«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 without narration about the clash between ancient Thebes and the droves of tourists that visit the "Trio Afrogarage alley of Kings"; with music by the "Trio Afrogarage".

What does a baby's cry have in common with the echo of a mountain yodler, and what connects the head tone of a Tuvin nomad with the stage show of a vocal artist? The answer is: THE VOICE. Against a background of powerful alpine vistas and modern city landscapes, "heimatklänge" enters the wondrous sonic world of three exceptional Swiss vocal artists. Their universe of sound extends far beyond what we would describe as singing. In their engagement with local and foreign traditions, the powerful mountain landscape becomes a stage as do the landscapes and sonic backdrops of modern life.

Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.

The policemen's wages were stolen from the Zurich police headquarters. Police inspector Meier 19 discovered that the head of the crime squad which was leading the investigation of the case gave a fake alibi. But instead of investigating the false alibi inspector Meier 19 was imprisoned, his wife demanded the divorce and his friends abandoned him. But the revolutionary youth movement of 1968 supported Meier 19 who became a symbol of the battle against the established order and corruption while his life fell apart like in a classical tragedy.

Kurt and Lydia are planning a relaxed vacation at the Gripsholm castle in Sweden . What Lydia does not know is that for Kurt, a well-known publicist, the journey is actually a flight from encroaching fascism and a direct threat from the Nazis.

We do not doubt the existence of humans. On the other hand, we still do not know why we exist or how we came into existence. This film deals with man's eternal dream to discover his origins.

The Grüninger case from Switzerland. This is a documentary about a police officer who showed civil courage back in the forties when he led many refugees fleeing German Nazi terror immigrate to Switzerland, although he was advised not to do so. Grüninger later was sued by the state of Switzerland, lost his job and died in the early seventies. The film constructs a just lawsuit with eye-witnesses and thus fully legitimates what Grüninger did.

A documentary film about Tibetan traditional medicine.

Erich Hirsch aka Surava was a journalist. He wrote about the deportation of French jews, and the Swiss government chased him because the Swiss government was Nazi-friendly. The Swiss intelligence service (Bundespolizei) knew him as a "communist jew". In fact, he worked for a left newspaper, but he wasn't a jew. Surava took his courage to write about the "censored" inhumanity in Europe.

A documentary about Che Guevara in Bolivia, based upon his journal listing daily agendas

This movie is about traditional swiss folkmusic has a lot more to offer than only folklore. "UR-Musig" is about the work and life of mountain peasants in the midst of archaic mountain landscapes. It is about traditional swiss architecture and interior decorations, about peoples and their garbs. There are not many dialogs and no narrator. The pictures speak for themselves. The Swiss Prealps are shown in all four seasons and in all thinkable weathers which make every landscape shot more breathtaking than the other.

Donusa is a small island in the Aegean, visited by the mainline ship once a week. One winter day a young German photographer, Stefan, arrives and soon feels strangely attracted to a local girl called Eleni. The stranger’s presence works as a catalyst shedding light on Donusa’s conventions.

When entertainment lawyer Wolfgang Leighton decides to take a break from business for some fishing in Tennessee's backwoods, he ends up embroiled in a bank robbery and murder. Pursued by the killers, he's running from the police and a young hitchhiker appears to be his only friend.

A Swiss documentary

A year on an Alpine farm: an older couple have two children, Belli, who wanted to be a teacher, and the younger Franzi, deaf, and although he works like a man, child-like. Belli teaches him. In his work, he can become frustrated, so when he throws an expensive mower over a cliff in a fit of pique, his father banishes him to the outskirts of the farm, where he uses pubescent energy to break rocks and build walls and cairns. (It's the tradition of the father's family, called "The Irascibles" by neighbors, to spend puberty doing this.) Belli visits him and they begin sleeping together. By winter, the boy is back in the house and Belli is pregnant. Soon her parents must know.

Francois Korb is an arms manufacturer who sold both to the Germans and the Allied forces. Korb's home life is less than ideal, since his wife is having an affair with his brother, and his young son is inseparable from a teddy bear. To remedy the son's situation, the parents take in a little refugee girl as a temporary companion and playmate, and the two children become fast friends.

An arsonist tries to shake up the despairing inhabitants of a village who can't communicate with each other.

This is an intimate portrait, made a year before his death, of writer Ludwig Hohl. Born in 1904, Hohl was admired by his peers Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt (and later, Adolf Muschg and Peter Handke), but has long been neglected.

The allotment gardens on the outskirts of the city of Zurich provide hundreds of unpropertied men and women with a home which they are unable to find in the impersonal rented blocks in which they live. The gardens represent their hobby, their freedom and their living space, which exists side by side with hard work. They cannot however own these "homes" and the film shows the chronicle of the events which took place in 1976 - 77 when construction of the Zurich wholesale market hall destroyed 150 gardens and made many people "homeless". This portrait of a group is complemented by the stories of three individuals.