60th Solothurn Film Festival dedicated to the Jura and biographies
Published: Wednesday, Dec 11th 2024, 15:20
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The 60th Solothurn Film Festival is all about biographies. For the anniversary edition, the program "Imaginaires du Jura" focuses on the biography of the Jura landscape. Many of the works shown also deal with the themes of inheritance and legacy.
91 feature-length and 71 short films have made it into the anniversary edition of the showcase of Swiss filmmaking. More than 400 submitted films were screened by the organizers, according to the program announcement on Wednesday. The film genres and formats are correspondingly broad. While the Solothurn Film Festival was still dominated by fictional films at the last edition, documentaries have now regained the upper hand, said Artistic Director Niccolò Castelli at the conference.
The "Panorama Switzerland" section reflects the diversity of Swiss filmmaking and is at the heart of the Solothurn Film Festival. Many filmmakers have dealt with questions about inheritance, which run like a common thread through the Solothurn Film Festival. This explicitly includes the film "We Heirs" by Simon Baumann, which is nominated for the Audience Award.
And in the documentary "Il ragazzo della Drina" by Zijad Ibrahimovic, the protagonist returns to the Drina Valley 30 years after the atrocities of the Bosnian war. The film raises the question of how new generations live with the legacy of war. The film is in the running for the "Prix de Soleure", which is endowed with 60,000 francs.
The opening film "The Legacy of Bruno Stefanini" fits in thematically here. In the documentary, filmmaker Thomas Haemmerli takes a humorous look at the life of Bruno Stefanini, who became a billionaire building contractor and collector. The Winterthur native collected contemporary art, but also curious objects - including Empress Sisi's underpants. The film has been nominated for the Audience Award at the Solothurn Film Festival.
The life of a landscape
The anniversary program "Imaginaires du Jura" focuses on the Jura landscape. In a cinematic retrospective, works from 100 years of film history will be shown, all of which were shot in the Jura region. The Jura, which has given so much to Swiss cinema, has never before received as much attention as it will now at the Solothurn Film Festival, said Monica Rosenberg, Operational Director of the Solothurn Film Festival.
The retrospective includes Swiss and French productions. These include the crime thriller "Les Grange Brûlées" (1973) by Jean Chapot and the feature film "Vingt dieux" (2024) by Geneva-born director Louise Courvoisier. Silent films from the early 20th century shot in the Jura have also been found and will be shown at the Solothurn Film Festival accompanied by music, said Castellini.
The landscapes of the Jura are not only shown on the big screen. For its anniversary, the Solothurn Film Festival is also going to the Solothurn Art Museum. From January 19 to May 4, 2025, the Jura in art will be on display there. The museum's director, Katrin Steffen, told the media that the questions being explored are who moves around the Jura, what idyllic images of it exist and which art media deal with which part of the landscape. "The aim would be for the art-loving public to go and watch films and for film lovers to be drawn to the art museum," said Monica Rosenberg.
With a tour through the Jura, which can be done independently with the help of a "road map", the Solothurn Film Festival also makes it possible to visit the locations that can be seen in the Jura films. The tour is available in the 86th edition of the travel magazine "Transhelvetica". The idea behind it, said Castellini, is that the public can see the films and then visit the locations from the films themselves.
The life of the people
Biographies of people can be seen in the "Focus" section. This film program explores the question of what makes a good "biopic" - and why filmed life stories such as those of Amy Winehouse or Robert Oppenheimer are currently so popular.
The focus program includes the drama "Limonov: The Ballad" (2024) by Kirill Serebrennikov. It interweaves the film biography of Russian writer Eduard Limonov with the sound of Lou Reed and Tom Waits.
A strikingly large number of young filmmakers are represented in the anniversary edition. They often dealt with mental and physical well-being in their films.
With a budget of CHF 3,551,000, there are slightly more funds available than in previous editions. The budget for 23/24 amounted to 3,280,500 francs. Those responsible explained this on Wednesday with the fact that a jubilee edition is now coming up, as well as with inflation.
The 60th Solothurn Film Festival takes place from January 22 to 29.
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