The seven Swiss contributions at the Berlinale
Published: Wednesday, Feb 14th 2024, 11:10
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The 74th Berlin International Film Festival, or Berlinale for short, begins on Thursday. Switzerland is represented at the festival with seven films and co-productions. "Gloria!" is in the running for a Golden Bear.
The Italian-Swiss co-production "Gloria!" is the debut of Italian director Margherita Vicario. The film is set in a girls' boarding school in Venice at the end of the 18th century and tells the story of Teresa, a young woman who challenges her environment with new and unusual music.
The film will be shown as a world premiere in the competition. "Gloria!" is competing against 19 other films from 30 production countries. Last year, two Swiss films were in the running for a Golden Bear.
"Les Paradis de Diane" by directing duo Carmen Jaquier ("Foudre") and Jan Gassmann ("99 Moons") celebrates its international premiere in the Panorama section. The film is about a mother who leaves her newborn baby and her husband behind and goes into hiding in a Spanish town. The film opened the 59th Solothurn Film Festival this January.
"Reinas" by Swiss-Peruvian director Klaudia Reynicke, which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival, is screening in the Generation Kplus competition and has a chance of winning a Crystal Bear. The feature film tells the story of a daughter and her mother who plan to leave Peru for the USA in 1992. The section is aimed at a young audience and "everyone else", as the organizers write on their website.
Many Swiss co-productions
The Special section features "Shikun" by Israeli director Amos Gitai, an Israeli-French-Swiss co-production that is celebrating its world premiere in Berlin. The film is based on a play by Eugène Ionesco and uses everyday episodes to explore the emergence of intolerance and totalitarian thinking.
There are two Swiss co-productions in the program of the Forum section. "Il cassetto segreto" by Sicilian director Costanza Quatriglio deals with the director's father. In the prison musical "Reas" by Argentinian director Lola Arias, a co-production from Argentina, Switzerland and Germany, people with different gender identities act out their experiences in prison.
The Forum Special features the German-Swiss co-production "Techqua Ikachi, Land - My Life" by Swiss directors Anka Schmid and Agnes Barmettler and Hopi director James Danaqyumptewa. The documentary from 1989 shows the destruction of the Hopi culture, an indigenous tribe in the USA, by the US government. This year's edition of the Forum Special is dedicated to films that, according to the organizers, take a stand.
Together with Cannes and Venice, the Berlinale is one of the largest European film festivals. Almost 78,000 tickets for the festival were already sold on the first day. The 74th edition begins on February 15 and runs until February 25.
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