Irène Schweizer (2006)

A well-preserved mammoth carcass is found in the remote New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, opening up the possibility of a world-changing “Jurassic Park” moment in genetics.

En 1984 el director alemán Phillip Gröning pidió permiso a la Orden de los Cartujos para rodar una película en el interior de uno de sus monasterios. Le dijeron que era demasiado pronto. Quizás más adelante. Dieciséis años después recibió una llamada. Había llegado la hora... Los preparativos llevaron dos años, el rodaje uno y la postproducción dos más. Han transcurrido, por tanto, veintiún años hasta su completa finalización. El Gran Silencio muestra por primera vez el día a día dentro del "Grande Chartreuse", el monasterio de referencia en los Alpes franceses de la legendaria Orden de los Cartujos.

Un relato de la vida y la obra del pintor, escultor, arquitecto y diseñador suizo H. R. Giger (1940-2014), padre atormentado de criaturas tan temibles como fascinantes, habitantes de mundos biomecánicos de pesadilla.

Arami Ullón must return to Paraguay to make an important decision: what will happen to her sick mother, Mirna? The heartfelt gaze of the camera reveals a relationship filled with love, but also unspoken and unresolved issues. A sensitive film which examines the inner turmoil of the daughter during the final stages of her mother’s degenerative illness.

A documentary. David Sieveking takes the advice of his idol, David Lynch and tries out Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation technique.

Filmmaker Peter Mettler embarks on a mission that takes him around the world. He is determined to record the diverse modes of transcendence that people in different cultures adopt in order to live life to the fullest. As he traverses civilization and wilderness and encounters a range of lifestyles and ideas, the filmmaker's mind-expanding trip around the world grows into a poem of images and sounds, reflecting the fragmented but alluring worlds it attempts to capture.

Zurich-born Hugo Koblet was the first international cycling star of the post-war period. He was a stylist on the bicycle and in life, and a huge heartthrob. Koblet had a meteoric rise and won the Giro d'Italia in 1950. Once he had reached the zenith of his career, Koblet was put under pressure by overly ambitious officials and ended up ruining his health with drugs. In 1954, he married a well-known model and they became a celebrity dream couple. After his athletic career ended, Koblet began to lose his footing. Threatened by bankruptcy, he crashed his Alfa into a tree.

Croacia, 7 de enero de 1992: En plena guerra, se descubre el cuerpo de un joven periodista vestido con el uniforme de un grupo mercenario internacional. Veinte años después, su prima Anja Kofmel investiga su historia

Pascal y Carole son pastores. En noviembre de 2010 se embarcan en la larga trashumancia invernal: cuatro meses durante los cuales tendrán que recorrer 600 km de la región suizo-francesa, acompañados de tres burros, cuatro perros y ochocientas ovejas.

At the far end of the Alaskan peninsula, for filmmaker Roman Droux a childhood dream comes true. He discovers together with the bear researcher David Bittner the universe of wild grizzlies. The two adventurists face bears at smelling-distance, experience the struggle for survival of a bear family and witness dramatic fighting scenes. Driven by a desire to explore the unknown the film tells a personal story of wilderness, framed in breathtaking pictures of unique creatures.

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.

She was a muse, model and performer – a star, dazzling and intense. Lady Shiva managed to rise from street prostitution to the top. She lived in the fast lane and died tragically young. Her dream was to become a singer. With her companions, we trace her life during a vibrant time that kindles a yearning and provokes until today. The story of a woman’s meteoric fate and a great dream. An irrepressible desire for freedom in all its beauty and destructive force - and a stirring friendship and love.

What Swiss director Stefan Schweitert did for accordion music and for yodeling (Accordion Tribe, Cinequest, 2005; Echoes of Home, Cinequest 2008) he now does for traditional Balkan music. This wonderful film is also a love story – and a door into a world of musical wonders.

Above and Below is a rough and rhythmic roller coaster ride seating five survivors in their daily hustle through an apocalyptic world. A journey of challenges and beauty in uncomfortable places: Rick & Cindy, Godfather Lalo in the flood channels deep down under the shiny strip of Sin City. Dave in the dry and lonesome Californian desert and April in simulation for a Mars mission in the Utah desert. Through the hustle, the pain and the laughs, we are whisked away to an unfamiliar world, yet quickly discover the souls we encounter are perhaps not that different from our own.

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.

A documentary about Ibrahim Gezer, who escaped from war in Kurdistan to Switzerland. All is lost, except his love for beekeeping.

It’s a black-and-white record of European cities in the dark (2-5am), from Basle to Belfast. Quiet, and meditative, what emerges most strongly is an eerie sense of city landscapes as deserted film sets, in which the desolate architecture overwhelms any sense of reality. The only reassurance that we are not in some endless machine-Metropolis is the shadow of daytime activity: a juggernaut plunging through a darkened village, a plague of small birds in the predawn light. The whole thing is underscored by a beautiful ‘composed’ soundtrack, from quietly humming streetlights to reggae and the rumble of armoured cars in Belfast. A strange and remarkable combination of dream, documentary and science-fiction.

Imagine waking up tomorrow and all music has disappeared. Just like that. What will remain when it is all gone: CDs, iPods, instruments?