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- Tax row, bank secrecy and exploitative commodities trading companies: Switzerland has an image problem. But don't worry. Simon and Andreas are taking care of it. The two fearless filmmakers head out on a yearlong odyssey across Switzerland in order to rebuild the battered reputation of their home country. Along the way they meet farmers and allotment gardeners, journalists and tourists, villa owners and numerous perplexed foreigners. Image Problem is a satirical documentary, which unmasks the lack of solidarity and increasing xenophobia in the small state Switzerland in an amusing and non-conformist way.
- Comprised entirely of archive material, drawing on a rich seam of documents to reveal how Swiss filmmaker and travel writer René Gardi left his mark on how a whole generation viewed Africa from the 1950s onward.
- Another film about dying? A number of documentaries on the subject of death and dying are produced in Switzerland every year. The usually highly emotional films appeal to the audience and are often showered with awards at film festivals. "Sensitive", "subtle" and "never voyeuristic" are the catchwords of the film award laudations. Therefore, the young filmmakers Simon Baumann and Adreas Pfiffner see the opportunity to achieve success with a subtle short documentary about death. They hurl themselves into the project with great enthusiasm and put themselves under substantial pressure to succeed. Will their film be as emotional and moving as its precursors? In order to get highly emotional statements from the persons interviewed in the film, the two young filmmakers are willing to do nearly everything. Thus, the overly motivated alter egos of the filmmakers unwillingly hinder a deeper examination of the subject of dying. They constantly interrupt their camera-inexperienced interviewees and push them into making more emotional statements. Comic and nearly grotesque does it get, once the filmmakers direct the interviewees to cry. Do you like to watch? There's hardly a documentary nowadays that goes without crying protagonists. It is generally assumed that these emotional films are made by sensitive filmmakers.
- The new hope on Switzerland's pop horizon is called "Pegasus": the young quartet from Biel has just released its first CD with a major label. Before that, however, the four 18-year-olds had already had a path of trial and tribulation behind them. Simon Baumann and Andreas Pfiffner accompanied Pegasus for two years, documenting their emotional roller coaster of highs and lows, self-doubt, crises, success and growing recognition. In spite of the fact that stars are frequently 'made' on television nowadays, their type is still around: musicians who write their own songs and view their music as a message to the listener. Four of these musicians perform in the leading roles of the film "Hope Music". They are approximately 18 years old and compose straightforward, popular pop songs in a style akin to the 1960s. They have what it takes - states the unanimous voice in the press - to attain international success.
- With his guitar the composer Ginancarlo Nicolai explores new soundscapes. In his compositions visual structures become audible and what emerges is music beyond conventions. For many years Giancarlo Nicolai has been going his own musical way. Simon Baumann and Andreas Pfiffner accompanied the Bernese composer with Italian background on part of this way and tried to visualize the origins of his compositions. What emerged is an intimate portrait of a fascinating human being, a meeting in the border zone between music and image, a meeting on a different level. "Music is stern about time. It is merciless. A metronome goes on and on. You can move within this space of time and if your good at it, you're free. That's when you experience freedom!" Giancarlo Nicolai.
- With 36 young dancers, the choreographer Cisco Aznar is staging the ballet-classic "The Rite of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky, a heathen ritual in which a young girl is sacrificed for the arrival of spring. In preparation for the production, Cisco is partaking in African-American rituals in the hinterland of Brazil and is looking for inspiration in trance dances.
- In a relationship, sharing is not always fun. In other words, one woman's meat is another man's poison.