Denis Jutzeler

Movies

Red Jungle
Director of Photography
Saturday, March 1st 2008. Commander Raul Reyes, number 2 of the FARC, died in the jungle under the ton of bombs dropped by the CIA and the Colombian army. Along with his corpse, the soldiers retrieved his computers: ten years of emails written by the man in charge of negotiating the release of a hundred of hostages (including Ingrid Betancourt), who also acted as the head of foreign affairs of the oldest communist guerrilla in the world. An amazing testimony where we meet politicians, journalists, arms dealers, diplomats, hitmen, his close relations and even his kids. “RED JUNGLE” delves into the mindset of this man who ruled the FARC with an iron fist, as the revolutionary utopia was slowly sinking into nightmare.
Urgent
Cinematography
Driss and Zahra leave their fisherman's village to take their six-year-old son, Ayoub, to the emergency room of the Casablanca's public hospital. There they meet Driss' brother, Houcine, with whom they have been in conflict for years. The doctor diagnoses a brain problem requiring immediate action. This is the starting point of a painful journey exhausting each one. Are they ready to do everything to save Ayoub's life?
Those Who Work
Director of Photography
Frank, a man of action who worked his way up all by himself, dedicates his life to work. No matter the place or the circumstances, be it day or night, he’s on the phone, handling the cargo ships he charters for major companies. But when he has to deal with a crisis situation, Frank makes a brutal decision and gets fired. Profoundly shaken, betrayed by a system to which he gave his all, he has to progressively question himself to save the one connection that still matters to him: the bond he’s managed to maintain with his youngest daughter, Mathilde.
Worst Case We Get Married
Director of Photography
Aïcha is a troubled teenage girl who cannot forgive her mother for kicking out the stepfather she adored. Aïcha longs for him to come back and take her away. When she meets Baz, a man twice her age, it’s love at first sight for her; the real kind, the one that hurts. Baz wants to help this lost little girl, but she wants much more from him, and is ready to do anything to get it.
Ce cher musée
Camera Supervisor
Keeper
Director of Photography
Maxime and Mélanie are a typical teenage couple. Like most lovestruck fifteen-year-olds, they can't get enough of each other and they think they'll be together forever. But when Mélanie becomes pregnant, their worlds are rocked.
À corde tendue
Director of Photography
After many years spent in jail, Sandra is finally free and is going back to Chamonix, where she was born, to meet her dad for the first time. But their reunion turns out to be quite complicated as they found themselves to have completely opposite personalities.On top of that, the villagers do not appreciate much the presence of a former prisoner in their town
Le monde est comme ça
Camera Operator
The film recounts the fates of five of the protagonists of the film “Special Flight” following their expulsion from Switzerland. Having been wrenched away from the country in which they had lived and from their children because they had no papers, they are found again in Senegal or Kosovo, in Gambia or Cameroun, destitute and cut off from their families, sometimes even having been tortured upon arrival. This film broaches the private lives of these broken men and testifies to the brutality of a migration policy that is common in Switzerland and in Europe.
Special Flight
Director of Photography
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.
Teenage Stories-1-The End of Innocence
Cinematography
Follow the daily lives of 11 12-year-olds in the city of Yverdon. What do teens do in Yverdon-les-Bains? What are their dreams, their revolts? How do they see their future? Which society would they want to build? In which Switzerland would they like to live?
Déchaînées
Director of Photography
Lucy, a 19-year old law student and intern at a Swiss television network in Geneva, comes across her double in archival footage about the woman’s liberation movement in the 70’s. Her family’s resistance to talk about this time convinces Lucy that a secret lurks behind this mysterious woman, named Genevieve.
Des bleus dans la police
Cinematography
Frozen Memories
Director of Photography
Le souffle du désert
Director of Photography
A disturbing exploration of what it means to be a man Desert Wind unveils the innermost thoughts of 13 men about their lives and male identity, making a clean sweep of clichés. Their revelations -- a glimpse of the hidden side that few men spontaneously reveal -- are of equal interest for women.
Absolut
Director of Photography
Two guys against globalization want to plant a virus in the network of a finance corporation. On the day of the attack Alex has an accident and cannot remember anything.
Skinhead Attitude
Director of Photography
Outlines the history of 40 years of the skinhead subculture, beginning with the most recent versions of the culture.
As Luck Would Have It
Director of Photography
Jean-Pierre is a literature professor in Switzerland. Due to the vagarities of Swiss law, he is selected, basically at random, to be the guardian of a parentless teenage boy named Antoine. Conflict comes into the story as Jean-Pierre, who has just accepted a major promotion, must now deal with caring for a teenage boy he doesn't want to care for, as well as handling his own jealous boyfriend. Then his wife steps into the picture. Things get complicated from there as Jean-Pierre tries to get out of his guardianship.
Flowers of Blood
Cinematography
In custody after she murders her middle aged photographer lover, a fourteen year old Pam reflects back on the bohemian life she spent with her mother Lily, a free spirited cabaret performer. Lily tried to elevate her stripper performances from the level of erotic spectacle to artistic expression as she dragged her young daughter from nightclub to nightclub and hotel to hotel, but ultimately lost her at nine to the Paris child authorities.
Jonas and Lila, Til Tomorrow
Cinematography
It’s December 1999, and 25-year-old Jonah has just graduated from film school. As the new millennium begins, Jonah marries his longtime sweetheart Lila. Over the course of six months, the couple meet a number of interesting people, including Irina, an exiled Russian actress, as well as spending their time with Jonah’s sister Cecile and his filmmaking mentor Anziano. The discussions Jonah has with these friends and strangers help him to gain some perspective on his life and the new millennium.
Fourbi
Director of Photography
Six years before this story begins, Rosemonde killed a would-be rapist. She was acquitted and returned to working part-time in a Geneva bar. Back in the present, a brand new television station seeks to create a television film about Rosemonde's life. The project is helmed by independent producer Kevin assigns his screen-writing pal Paul to interview Rosemonde and use it for the basis of a fictionalized teleplay. Unfortuantely for him, the taciturn and cynical barmaid wants nothing to do with project and refuses to speak to Paul. This satirical French-Swiss drama follows Paul as he simultaneously attempts to get her story and into her bed. Since Rosemonde refuses to speak to him, Paul decides to pay his ex-lover Marie, a serious stage actress, become the bar maid's friend.
Men of the Port
Cinematography
After 40 years Alain Tanner again travels to the port of Genoa, where he worked for a shipping company as a 22-year-old. On the back of his own memories he depicts the rough world of the dockworkers, another of those trades that has undergone fundamental changes as a result of recessions, modernisation and liberalisation. “The visual impression of the harbour and the city has changed very little, but what goes on there nowadays is completely different. The city is still as beautiful and alien and somewhat sad as before. But the port is dying, like so many other major ports. In Genoa, as elsewhere in Italy, the economic, social and political climate is highly explosive. But you also feel that things are in flow and the country is on the verge of some far-reaching changes. (...) In this film I wanted to explore my own memories of Genoa, uncover its present and guess at its future. Genoa, this beautiful, this sad, this alien town has become for me a metaphor for society in change.”
The Diary of Lady M
Cinematography
She's a beautiful gifted performer, but her work is not the sort that invites popular acclaim. Despite the fact that she is unlikely to become famous, she enjoys her life as a performer who lives just outside the mainstream. Awaiting her backstage one evening is a Spanish painter who has seen her show and wants to make her acquaintance. They walk around Paris getting to know one another, and then the painter returns to Spain. Something about the man has moved Lady M to passion: she flies to meet him in Barcelona and he shows her his beloved Catalonia. This time, however, their relationship is as much about passionate lovemaking as it is about compatibility. So smitten is Lady M with her new man that when she discovers that the painter has a black wife and child, she is only a little bit taken aback and she invites his whole family to join her in Paris. Surprisingly, they do, and the number of people sharing their love and sexual appetites changes from two to three.