Focus on Switzerland

Every year, the organizers of the Krakow Film Festiwal invite a selected country to present their newest accomplishments in documentary and short film in the non-competitive section “Focus on…”. The theme of the first edition was Israel, a year later Krakow hosted the Dutch, last year the festival was visited by filmmakers from Italy. Now, we have the opportunity to take a closer look at the productions from Switzerland.
 

The section is going to be opened by “Winter Nomads”, a story of a couple of modern shepherds, who roam the 600 km long route along the Swiss-French border in winter time, in the company of 3 donkeys, 4 dogs and 800 sheep. The film has won the best European documentary award in 2012, and will be presented to the Polish audience by the director Manuel von Stürler.
 

The adjective “Swiss” does not necessarily mean, that all of these films take place in the mountainous enclave in the middle of Europe. “The World Is Like That” is a sequel to the moving “Special Flight” shown at the Krakow Film Festival last year. The director Fernand Melgar has not abandoned his characters after their deportation and is still following their lives in Gambia, Kosovo, Senegal or Cameroon. Peter Entrell in his film “Home Away From Here” takes a look at a wife organizing the memorabilia of her late husband – Edgar Snow, a worldwide known journalist, the author of a famous book “Red Star Over China”, accused of communist sympathies in the time of McCarthyism and forced into exile. “Virgin Tales” by Mirjam von Arx document the American phenomenon of the growing popularity of movements promoting virginity. For two years, in an evangelic pastor’s family, the director has been accompanying the girls, who made vows of chastity. On the other hand, Rolando Colla has been watching for eight years the struggle of three characters: a Swiss nurse, a Balkan shepherd and a Cuban psychiatrist (“A Better Life Is Somewhere Else”). Martin Schilt and Bernard Weber directed their camera at a band of yodeling men, who go on a tournee in China (“No Business Like Show Business”). Daniel Young tells a story of a writer and composer Paul Bowles, the author of „The Sheltering Sky” filmed by Bernardo Bertolucci, and his wife Jane, who despite their homosexual affairs, run an open-house for European artists in Tangier. (“Paul Bowles: The Cage is Always Open”).

The image of modern Swiss cinema will be completed by the Swiss films presented outside of this section. For the official opening of the Festival the organizers have prepared a music documentary about the American movies veteran, Harry Dean Stanton (“Harry Dean Santon: Party Fiction”). The short film competition will host the warm “Stammering Love” by Jan Czarlewski, the surreal “Room 606” by Peter Volkart, the adult animation „Plug &Play” by Michael Frei, the honest “Spare Time” by Myriam Rachmuth, the philosophical animated “Look” by Justine Klaiber and Jane Mumford; in the documentary competition we will see the Indian “Sadhu” by Gaël Métroz, while in the music documentary competition Stephanie Argerich will present the Swiss-French co-production “Bloody Daughter”.  The meetings with filmmakers will take place after the screenings.
 

The screenings of documentaries and short films will be accompanied by a conference, attended by filmmakers, producers and representatives of Swiss film institutions. The event organized under the Industry Zone is aimed at understanding the specific nature of the film industry and the exploration of Polish-Swiss co-production opportunities. The conference will be held on 29^th May, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Małopolski Ogród Sztuki.

The opening of „Focus on Switzerland” will take place on 27th May, 7 p.m. at the Pod Baranami cinema.

The „Focus on Switzerland” section has been organized with the support of the Swiss Film and the Swiss Embassy in Warsaw.