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MAX BILL – THE MASTER'S VISION
Max Bill's 100th anniversary on 22. December 2008
(1 x 85 minutes / 1 x 52 minutes)
Produced by: Ariadnefilm in co-production with Swiss TV and 3Sat.
A Film by Erich Schmid.
Theatrical Release Switzerland: August 2008 / www.maxbillfilm.ch
Max Bill (1908-1994) was probably the most important Swiss artist of the 20th century. The film offers an introduction into his prolific work as architect, designer, sculptor and painter. During his lifetime he was a rebel – today he lives ever present amongst the most influential artists of the 20 th century. A former Bauhaus student, his name stands for a gesamtkunstwerk of the avantgarde, which is firmly focussed on the future, which bears a social responsibility and which intrinsically contains an engaged political message. What mattered for Max Bill was the creation of our environment and a green consciousness, which is currently of incredible imminence.
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Produced by: Swiss Dots and Veer
A Film by Gary Hustwit
www.helveticafilm.com
This doc invites us to take a second look at the thousands of printed words we see every day and how they affect our lives. Since its birth in 1957, the typeface “Helvetica” appears in corporate logos, signage for transportation systems, prints and myriad other uses worldwide. And we use it on our computers as “arial” font every day!
SELECTION HOTDOCS 2007, SILVERDOCS 2007/ SCREENED AT OVER 150 INTERNATIONAL VENUES! ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FESTIVAL FILMS!
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Produced by: Show and Tell Films in co-production with SSR SRG idée Suisse (Swiss TV).
A Film by Peter Entell.
www.shakethedeviloff.com
MONTREAL FILMFESTIVAL AWARD 2007 / NOMINATED FOR SWISS FILM PRIZE 2007 /
LOCARNO 2007 / IDFA 2007
A study of power and how it works. It is New Orleans after the hurricane. A priest's faith is tested as he and his parish of mostly Afro-Americans struggle to keep their church open. The church in renowned as the birthplace of jazz and gospel and a powerful reminder of the history of slavery.
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PIPILOTTI RIST (working title)
(1 x 52 minutes)
Produced by: Catpics (ÄSSHÄK, TALES OF THE SAHARA, THE SALTMEN OF TIBET), in co-production with Swiss TV.
A Film by Michael Hegglin
Delivery schedule: middle of 2009
Taking as a starting-point the 2005 Biennale in Venice, where the Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist once more reached international critical acclaim, the film accompanies her during the work on five exhibitions in Zurich, Milano, New York (MOMA), Stockholm und Tokyo and thereby creates a portrait of this important contemporary artist. The New York Times wrote about her work at the Biennale: "Pipilotti Rist is projecting a psychedelic kaleidoscope version of heaven: Tiepolo, Cranach, Duchamp come to mind all at once – or at least, Cranach on acid. Very cool. Very Zen." For Pipilotti Rist life seems to be like a laboratory, in which interesting experiments can be conducted. And the camera will be part of this experiment, which closely follows the creation of every new work.
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ANNIVERSARY 08 / HENRI CARTIER BRESSON - The impassioned eye
(1 x 52 / 1 x 58 / 1 x 72)
Written and directed by Heinz Bütler.
Produced by NZZ Film (Switzerland).
Together with Isabelle Hupert, Arthur Miller, Robert Delphire and Elliott Erwitt, Josef Koudelka and Ferdinando Scianna, Henri Cartier-Bresson is personally presenting his work in connection with the new book publication "De qui s’agit-il?" and a retrospective at the French National Library. An incomparable and rare journey tracing half a century of photography.
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ANNIVERSARY 08 / INVITATION TO A VOYAGE - Eileen Gray, Designer and Architect
Produced
by Kick Film GmbH, Germany
Directed by Jörg Bundschuh
Design icon of the 20th century, Eileen Gray is considered to be the very essence of the Modern. Everyone knows her famous design furniture and she revolutionized our idea of how we live. A surprising doc about this fascinating woman, including her futuristic architectural project E.1027 in Roquebrune/France, which mesmerized Le Corbusier to obsession and destroyed his friendship with Eileen Gray. August 9, 2008 is the 130th anniversary of her birth.
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ANNIVERSARY 08 / YEHUDI MENUHIN
(1 x 55)
A 55 minute documentary written and directed by Felice Zenoni.
Produced by Mesch & Ugge TV Produktionen (Switzerland).
Sir Yehudi Menuhin travelled and played the world. But it was in Gstaad, Switzerland where he settled with his family in the 1950s and later became even a naturalized Swiss citizien. It was the picturesque mountain surrounding and the cultural mix of four different languages that he admired and he wanted to become part of it...
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RIVIERA
COCKTAIL - Edward Quinn, Photographer, Nice
(1 x 96 / 1 x 52)
Written
and directed by Heinz Bütler
Produced by Wolfgang Frei / NZZ Film (Switzerland)
Co-Produced by Swiss Television TSR, AVRO, YLE
In Association with ARTE France, SVT
No photographer offers us a more extensive, exciting and stirring record of the social and cultural life at the Côte D’Azur in the 1950s than Irishman Edward Quinn (1920 – 1997). He penetrated the society jungle on the French Riviera for more than a decade, and salvaged invaluable treasures in this former epicenter of high life, big business, art, music and literature...
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ALBERTO GIACOMETTI – Eyes on the horizon
(1 x 58 / 1 x 72)
Written and directed by Heinz Bütler.
Produced by NZZ Film.
This award-winning documentary is a film journey through a unique life of art, whose point of departure is an artist who also spent a lifetime writing: musings, diary-like notes, analytic comments on his own work, descriptions of dreams, essays on artist colleagues and recollections.
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ETTORE SOTTSASS - The sense of things
(1 x 58)
Written and directed by Heinz Bütler.
Produced by NZZ Film.
Ettore Sottsass (born in 1917) is one of the most distinguished designers alive. He designed created a whole range of legendary design classics for the global company, Olivetti and co-founded the famous Memphis Group which revolutionised design and became a phenomenon of Pop Culture.
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FÉLIX VALLOTTON – PAINTER AGAINST TIME
(1 x 52)
A 52 minutes documentary written and directed by Heinz Bütler.
Produced by NZZ Film (Switzerland).
The painter, graphic artist and writer Félix Vallotton (Lausanne 1865 – Paris 1925) cannot be confined to a specific movement. The interiors that he made at the turn-of-the-century are without precedent in the history of art. His portraits are unsparing psychograms of his sitters...
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FERDINAND HODLER - Das Herz ist mein Auge
(1 x 58 / 1x 75 / Only German version available at the moment)
Written and directed by Heinz Bütler.
Produced by NZZ Film, SSR SRG idée suisse and Xanadu Film.
"Ferdinand Hodler – Das Herz ist mein Auge" is the first representative documentary portrait about the life and work of Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) exploring his greatest themes man, nature, love and death.
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HAVANA
– THE NEW ART OF MAKING RUINS
(1
x 90 and 1 x 52 minutes / AVAILABLE
IN HD!)
Produced by Raros Media.
A film by Florian Borchmeyer and Matthias Hentschler.
World Premiere at the Locarno International Filmfestival 2006.
Havana is famous for the morbid charm of its flaking facades. The beauty of this city lies in the poetry of its ruins. They are far less poetic, however, for the people who inhabit them. Houses frequently collapse causing fatalities. The decay of the city and its living quarters is a continual source of both danger and shame for its residents... The film portrays five people in Havana who reside in buildings at various states of decay. They all try to escape from a life which risks to become ruined by the fact of inhabiting a ruin. Plumber Totico flees from the noisy inferno of his tenement in the center of Havana and spends his time with the pigeons on the flat roof. Homeless Reinaldo has found shelter in the rubbles of a theater in which once Caruso sang for Cuba’s high society. Misleidys, ex-wife of a millionaire, leaves behind the golden cage of her marriage in order to live in the debris of a formerly glamorous hotel. Ponte, a writer, conceives a philosophy of the ruin to be able to explain and bear the gradual collapse of the city and the political system. The film is a portrait of the inhabited ruins of Havana and their strange blend of magic and demolition and captures the final moments of these buildings before they’re renovated – or simply collapse altogether.
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THE MAN OF BLACK AND WHITE – ADRIAN FRUTIGER
(1 x 45 minutes / AVAILABLE IN HD!)
Produced and filmed by Christoph Frutiger and Christine Kopp.
A sensitive portrait of Adrian Frutiger, one of the most important type designers of our time: After over 40 years in Paris, he has created more than thirty fonts, including the world-famous Méridien, Univers and Frutiger type families. Frutiger has worked for IBM and type manufacturers such as Linotype and Westiform, and designed logos and signage systems. Less well-known are his freely conceived works in which the designer gave wonderful expression to his desire for pictorial representations which convey more than words. This deep relationship with nature was of fundamental importance for his work.
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ANDREAS
WALSER, PAINTER - A BRIEF LIFE BETWEEN ECSTASY AND ABYSS
(Original German title: DIE NACHT IST HELLER ALS DER TAG)
(1
x 52)
A
Film by Heinz Bütler.
Produced by NZZ Film (Switzerland).
Swiss artist Andreas Walser died March 19, 1930, presumably from an overdose of drugs. Walser's life is an odyssey through the literary and artistic milieu of Paris. Both in his work and in his personal life, times of unbridled optimism alternate abruptly with profound depression and premonitions of death. Walser produced his work at a fast, rapturous clip and enjoyed the recognition of important contemporary artists. Picasso endeavoured to sell his paintings. Cocteau tried to help his friend kick the drug habit, especially the morphium. His friendship with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Augusto Giacometti lasted until his death. The film traces the brief life of an early modern artist who remains to be discovered, and introduces viewers to his clearly independent oeuvre.
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BRUNO
GANZ - Up close - From the stage to the screen
(1 x 52 / English and German versions available)
Written
and directed by Norbert Wiedmer.
Produced by PS Film (Switzerland).
In time for the international launch of Bernd Eichinger’s (producer) and Oliver Hirschbiegel’s (director) new feature THE DOWNFALL – HITLER AND THE END OF THE THIRD REICH about Hitler’s last days, the actor impersonating Hitler, Bruno Ganz, is inviting us to find out about his motivation to play this provoking role about a sensitive subject. The documentary traces his acting career from his early days, when he gained international recognition for his angelic part in the internationally acclaimed Wim Wender feature WINGS OF DESIRE. An entertaining "conversation nocturne" with one of Europe’s great actors.
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SIGNERS
SUITCASE / SIGNERS KOFFER
(1 x 90 / 1 x 52)
An extensive illustration of the work of internationally exhibited artist Roman Signer, including many "action sculptures".
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DIETER
ROTH
(1 x 117 / 1 x 25 / 1 x 52 planned)
Written
and directed by Edith Jud.
Produced by Reck Filmproduktion (Switzerland).
A portrait of German-born Swiss artist Dieter Roth, one of the 20th century’s most important, influential and unconventional artists, who died in June 1988. The film shows his life and work, including his gesamtkunstwerk as well as videos and films in which the artist himself appears. Several exhibitions in Germany and at the MOMA New York will feature his works in 2004. A 1-hour version of this documentary is planned.
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A
75 minutes documentary film written and directed by Stefan
Schwietert.
Produced by Neapel Film.
THE ALPHORN STORY by film-maker Stefan Schwietert (El Accordeon del Diablo) follows three leading innovators in Alphorn music through mountain-pastures to train-stations and expressway underpasses. Soon it is clear that there is a collision of very different opinions concerning the issue of how Swiss tradition is viewed with regards to music and folklore. A brandnew look at how a cliché-laden musical culture can be transformed to new artistic heights.
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A
1 x 110 minutes documentary film written and directed by Samir.
Produced by Dschoint
Ventschr Filmproduktion (Switzerland) and TagTraum (Germany).
A cinematic reflection of the stereotypes of "the Jew" and "the Arab" through one hundred years of cinema, linked with the biographies of four extraordinary people: Iraqi-Jewish communists. Together, film images and documentary material offer a fascinating view on the universal themes of alienation and the construction of identity.
PRIZE OF THE JURY CRITICS WEEK, LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILMFESTIVAL 2002.
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CHARLIE CHAPLIN - The Forgotten Years
A
55 minutes "special" written and directed by Felice Zenoni
and Beat Hirt.
Produced by Mesch & Ugge TV Produktionen (Switzerland).
This highly popular and moving film documents Charlie Chaplin's life from 1952 until 1977. Offering insight into his family-life, love for the circus, prolific years as musical composer. And the incredible surveillance by Swiss Secret Police. Interviews include Chaplin's children Geraldine, Michael, Eugene; Arthur Cohn, Petula Clark, Sir Peter Ustinov. With much new footage!
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Tanger, a frontier town, a town of passage for the famous, artists, romantics and a town of exile...
A
52
minutes documentary film written and directed by Daniel
Calderon.
Produced by Tlaloc Films Productions (Switzerland).
This compelling film tells us about the various creative scenes in Tanger from the view of Morocco's oldest hotel, the Continental Tanger. What is the secret of the town who inspired so many? Why did legends like Orson Welles, Humphrey Bogart and also The Rolling Stones find themselves surrounded by this oriental beauty?
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