Daniel Schmid

In order to sustain his family, a troubled pilot accepts one last crooked deal to transport a dangerous cargo inside his spaceship.

When director Daniel Schmid grew up, his parents ran a hotel in the Alps, and this singular setting was to influence his film. Rather by coincidence he came to Berlin in the early 1960s and became part of the new German wave. Schmid worked with, among others, Wenders and Fassbinder, for example as an actor in Wender’s The American Friend. He met Ingrid Caven, who was to play a diva in several of his films. This is a documentation of a part of modern European film history and a good analysis of artistry and how it corresponds to the individual behind the camera. A wealth of archival footage brings us close to many directors and actors in Schmid’s circle. If you’ve never seen a Daniel Schmid film, you are sure to want to after watching this portrait of his life.

Live performance from the Zurich Opera House, January 2002.

A naive girl's love for Switzerland is put to the test in this satiric comedy. Irina is a woman from Russia who all her life has always been fascinated by Switzerland and longs to live there some day, though her notion of Swiss life has more to do with Heidi and old movies set in the Alps than reality.

Acclaimed soprano Edita Gruberova stars as the title character in this 1996 production of Gaetano Donizetti's "Linda di Chamounix," featuring the Orchestra and Chorus of the Zurich Opera House under the direction of conductor Adam Fischer. Secretly in love with Viscount Carlo, Linda goes mad when she learns a marriage to another woman has been arranged for him. Jacob Will and László Polgár also star.

In Japanese theater women's roles are traditionally played by men. The man playing the woman's role, the Onnagata, does not imitate the woman, as in the West, but tries to capture her significance. He need not stick close to his model, but draws far more from his own identity - a shift of value takes place, which is nonetheless not a step beyond. THE WRITTEN FACE is an attempt to offer an insight into the Japanese Kabuki star Tamasaburo Bando, one of the last defenders of this ancient and disappearing performing tradition.

In Japanese theater women's roles are traditionally played by men. The man playing the woman's role, the Onnagata, does not imitate the woman, as in the West, but tries to capture her significance. He need not stick close to his model, but draws far more from his own identity - a shift of value takes place, which is nonetheless not a step beyond. THE WRITTEN FACE is an attempt to offer an insight into the Japanese Kabuki star Tamasaburo Bando, one of the last defenders of this ancient and disappearing performing tradition.

Kazuo Ohno, Father of the Butoh Dance, first appeared on stage at the age of 43. He left the stage only at the age of one hundred, three years before he died. This short dialogue less film presents the exceptional range of expressions that this Japanese dancer could achieve, both with makeup and costumes and without.

The formerly great Swiss hotel which Valentin's family owned when he was a boy has been emptied and is about to be torn down. He revisits the magical site's empty halls and ballrooms.

The formerly great Swiss hotel which Valentin's family owned when he was a boy has been emptied and is about to be torn down. He revisits the magical site's empty halls and ballrooms.

A journalist is assigned to interview an eccentric anthropologist who has exhumed the skeleton of Jörg Jenatsch, a revered freedom fighter who was mysteriously murdered in 1639. Initially disinterested, the journalist begins to uncover unflattering truths about the national hero and experiences visions in which he seems to be witnessing events that transpired over 300 years ago. As he obsessively pursues the investigation, his personal life and his grip on reality disintegrate, drawing him relentlessly toward the fatal carnival at which Jenatsch was killed.

A journalist is assigned to interview an eccentric anthropologist who has exhumed the skeleton of Jörg Jenatsch, a revered freedom fighter who was mysteriously murdered in 1639. Initially disinterested, the journalist begins to uncover unflattering truths about the national hero and experiences visions in which he seems to be witnessing events that transpired over 300 years ago. As he obsessively pursues the investigation, his personal life and his grip on reality disintegrate, drawing him relentlessly toward the fatal carnival at which Jenatsch was killed.

The work of legendary actor François Simon, son of Michel Simon.

Memoirs of the Italian Opera by the singers and musicians of the Casa Verdi, Milan, the world’s first nursing home for retired opera singers, founded by composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1896. This documentary, which has achieved cult-like status among opera and music lovers, features former singers who reminisce about their careers and their past operatic roles.

Memoirs of the Italian Opera by the singers and musicians of the Casa Verdi, Milan, the world’s first nursing home for retired opera singers, founded by composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1896. This documentary, which has achieved cult-like status among opera and music lovers, features former singers who reminisce about their careers and their past operatic roles.

A woman goes to Cannes and, lost in its chaos and unable to obtain tickets, ends up watching it on television from her hotel room.

A woman goes to Cannes and, lost in its chaos and unable to obtain tickets, ends up watching it on television from her hotel room.

Portrait of filmmaker Douglas Sirk.

Portrait of filmmaker Douglas Sirk.

Portrait of filmmaker Douglas Sirk.

Set amid the European community in an unspecified North African country, a colony on the verge of nationalism just before the war. And colonized is what happens to a French diplomat, Julien Rochelle, when he meets the mysterious beauty Clothilde de Watteville. Schmid 's favorite axiom, that love is projection, never had such a thorough airing. Is Clothilde really the wife of a French official now holed up in Siberia? Or is she Hecate, goddess of black magic and devourer of the Arab boys she meets far from the European quarter? Only our projections know for sure; for the rest, she is a "woman looking out into the night." Drawn from a novel by Paul Morand, who based the main character on his wife Helene, Schmid's film achieves an atmosphere of magic in which psychological credibility is not so much absent as irrelevant-a film that distances itself from the drama it invokes, perhaps as the elusive Clothilde turns her back on the madness she provokes.

Set amid the European community in an unspecified North African country, a colony on the verge of nationalism just before the war. And colonized is what happens to a French diplomat, Julien Rochelle, when he meets the mysterious beauty Clothilde de Watteville. Schmid 's favorite axiom, that love is projection, never had such a thorough airing. Is Clothilde really the wife of a French official now holed up in Siberia? Or is she Hecate, goddess of black magic and devourer of the Arab boys she meets far from the European quarter? Only our projections know for sure; for the rest, she is a "woman looking out into the night." Drawn from a novel by Paul Morand, who based the main character on his wife Helene, Schmid's film achieves an atmosphere of magic in which psychological credibility is not so much absent as irrelevant-a film that distances itself from the drama it invokes, perhaps as the elusive Clothilde turns her back on the madness she provokes.

1938년 취리히. 독일인 빌키는 술집에서 일하고 있다. 빌키는 스위스인 음악가 로베르트 멘델스존을 사랑하게 된다. 아들이 독일인과 관계하는 것을 반대한 로베르토의 아버지는 빌키가 스위스로 돌아오지 못하도록 할 수 있었다. 빌키는 일에서는 운이 좋았다. 그녀가 전에 취입했던 음반이 인기를 얻게 되며 스타가 된다. 그 와중에 빌키는 나찌의 비밀경찰과 엮이지만 결국에는 전쟁에서 살아 남는다. 하지만 로베르토는 결혼해서 행복하게 살고 있다.

Roberte, 40, resistant during the war, Calvinist and anticlerical, is deputy to the chamber and inspector of Censorship. She married Octave, an old Catholic aesthete, professor of canon law, whom she saves from impeachment for collaboration during the war. He submits his wife to a perverse custom: the laws of hospitality or prostitution of the wife by the husband.

Voted for in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll

Voted for in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll

함부르크에서 사는 액자공 조나단 짐머맨은 자신이 불치의 병에 걸린 시한부 인생이라는 사실을 정체가 분명하지 않은 미국인 미술품 브로커 리플리로부터 듣게 된다. 리플리는 짐머맨에게 요구를 들어주면 아내와 아들에게 유산으로 물려줄 수 있는 거액을 준다고 약속한다. 리플리의 제안에 따르기로한 짐머맨은 지시대로 파리의 지하철에서 한 사내를 죽이고,음모와 우연과 모험이 뒤얽힌 세계로 빠져든다.

Beautiful, detached, laconic, consumptive Lily Brest is a streetwalker with few clients. She loves her idle boyfriend Raoul who gambles away what little she earns. The town's power broker, called the rich Jew, discovers she is a good listener, so she's soon busy. Raoul imagines grotesque sex scenes between Lily and the Jew; he leaves her for a man. Her parents, a bitter Fascist who is a cabaret singer in drag and her wheelchair-bound mother, offer no refuge. Even though all have a philosophical bent, the other whores reject Lily because she tolerates everyone, including men. She tires of her lonely life and looks for a way out. Even that act serves the local corrupt powers.

Beautiful, detached, laconic, consumptive Lily Brest is a streetwalker with few clients. She loves her idle boyfriend Raoul who gambles away what little she earns. The town's power broker, called the rich Jew, discovers she is a good listener, so she's soon busy. Raoul imagines grotesque sex scenes between Lily and the Jew; he leaves her for a man. Her parents, a bitter Fascist who is a cabaret singer in drag and her wheelchair-bound mother, offer no refuge. Even though all have a philosophical bent, the other whores reject Lily because she tolerates everyone, including men. She tires of her lonely life and looks for a way out. Even that act serves the local corrupt powers.

Nightclub singer La Paloma succumbs to the persistent courting of a chubby rich admirer and marries him. Before the marriage, she was thought to be dying, but soon she is well. She believes her husband's love has cured her, but her efforts to love him begin to fade as she discovers true love with her husband's old school friend.

Nightclub singer La Paloma succumbs to the persistent courting of a chubby rich admirer and marries him. Before the marriage, she was thought to be dying, but soon she is well. She believes her husband's love has cured her, but her efforts to love him begin to fade as she discovers true love with her husband's old school friend.

Satire on 19th-century class relations and thinly veiled commentary on the failure of the 1968 political revolution.

Satire on 19th-century class relations and thinly veiled commentary on the failure of the 1968 political revolution.

Reflected in an artificial and bombastically staged illusory world with Wagnerian compositions, glossy and satirical time references, 19th century German figures and traditions are stripped of their mythology and interpreted by the Germany of 1972.

A wacky coup d'etat masterminded by a Russian call girl, in of all places, staid Switzerland, is the subject of Daniel Schmid's black humorous satire on power and its misuses.

A wacky coup d'etat masterminded by a Russian call girl, in of all places, staid Switzerland, is the subject of Daniel Schmid's black humorous satire on power and its misuses.

Early short by Daniel Schmid.

Early short by Daniel Schmid.

Scenes from Berlin: Kids playing football, a man tries to light a fire in his stove, a film team sets up a shot in a park, students discuss politics.