David Fonjallaz

«Energy Pioneers» portrays two visionaries and their fellow campaigners as they fight to solving one of humanity’s most challenging problems. A film about obstacles, crises and the power of an idea.

Talented swimmer, motivated apprentice, cool buddy: Beyto is in the midst of life. But when the only son of a Turkish migrant family falls in love with his coach Mike, an ideal world falls to pieces. His parents only see one way out: They lure him to their home village and plan his wedding with Seher, his childhood friend. Suddenly, Beyto finds himself in a disruptive love triangle.

Water, air, earth, fire, ether. Four different stories that tell and show a reaching out towards immortality. We dedicate the element water to immortality in science, that of air to the immortality of art, that of earth to the immortality of faith and that of fire to the immortality of feelings. Ether, linked to the cosmos and the stars, is a tribute to the film industry.

How do prison sentences affect the family members of those who have been incarcerated?

Welcome to “the prime of life”. All his life, Rudy has worked hard for the firm, and for the family. But now, everything is about to change: Rudy retires. No alarm clock, no meetings, no travels to distant countries to set the pace. Shopping, cooking, gardening, and the daily routines of marital bliss will now fill his schedule. Rudy was actually looking forward to it, to the next phase. But as he soon realizes, “the prime of life” is a wild ride on an emotional rollercoaster. Retirement is not for cowards.

In Bern, Madame Mercedes has been working for 35 years in her car as a prostitute. An intimate and subtle portrait about ageing as a prostitute, a documentary about a vanishing chapter of habits in Switzerland.

Is cycling the key to happiness? Does being a cycle courier mean absolute freedom or just providing a simple service? CYCLIQUE plunges us into the bicycle delivery world in Lausanne and allows us to share in the lives of three couriers who are at a crossroads in their lives.

«A heroine's quest» portrays the Muslim woman Naima Serroukh as she sets up her pilot project Tasamouh to combat religious extremism. Naima's story is told as she goes about her work as manager of the project and gives us an insight into the world of prevention work. Besides her search for financing and partners, her personal conflicts, she gives advice to distraught mothers, coaches young people and tries to provide them with support in their integration process. «A heroine's quest» paints the portrait of a strong woman, who has come to accept that progress can only be made in tiny baby steps, but at the end of the day, it's all about making life together a bit better. A portrait of an everyday heroine. An impression of the Muslim community in the fight against prejudice.

Twelve talented young mountaineers, five geologists from the University of Lausanne and four mountain guides take an unprecedented risk in Patagonia. Trained by the great climbers Ralf Weber, Ueli Steck, Denis Burdet and David Fasel, the young people are collecting rock samples from the granite walls of the Paine Towers, which are up to 1000 meters high, on behalf of science. The challenges are enormous: Climbing a big wall at the highest level of difficulty, cloudy weather, relentless wind that tears at material and nerves - and an urgency that also pushes the group to their emotional limits. "Flying High" not only documents an extraordinary undertaking, but also shows up close what happens when something happens that can happen after every meter of altitude climbed: a fall.

In this small village in Extremadura, population has been declining since the 1960s, driven away by unemployment. Alberto Martín Menacho returns to this region he knows intimately, and together with local youths, spins stories in a reality suspended between tradition and modernity, human and animal, between a thousand-year-old oak tree and Tinder. A strikingly graceful debut film.

Four European truckers meet at a rest area when news interrupt the cozy atmosphere: Italy has closed the borders for Eastern Europeans. Suddenly, two of the friends are unable to continue their journey. The search for a solution puts the group's strength to the test and the rest area becomes the center of European politics.

It is one of the toughest races in alpine skiing: the Patrouille des Glaciers. Frédéric Favre accompanied three participants for a year and a half. In the training that pushes them to their physical limits, in the mental preparation that reveals their deepest fears, in the race that pushes them to their limits. Florence wants to compete in memory of her father, but as a loner she has to learn team spirit. Guillaume is a competitor with heart and soul, but his greatest struggle is to balance family, work and passion. Antoine has been through drug withdrawal: high time to prove to the world what he is capable of!

At the far end of Europe, on the southern border of Spain, lies Almería. It is a huge province completely covered with white plastic, harbouring Europe’s largest vegetable garden. It is the place where our tomatoes come from, even in winter. But under all the plastic, strange things happen… Today, the vegetable garden inevitably moves to Morocco. Spanish farmers dive well under their prices to keep in the race. 120.000 migrants work in slave-like conditions on the plantations.

She is a lesbian. She is a believer. And maybe soon a priest: Stefanie Arnold from Uri is on her way into the church ministry with her ordination as a deaconess, a vicariate year should give her certainty. But does she, as a lesbian woman living in a registered partnership, fit into an institution that has been dominated by patriarchal structures for centuries? And how do other people from the queer community fight for their place in the church?

Kevin lives in a time and place where everything is permitted and accepted. He wants to rebel – but against what? A tragicomedy about youth gasping for air in a cotton-candy world. A generation seeking a reason for its malaise and a way to shed the boredom – only to discover, at most, its own emptiness. That’s no way to start a revolution. Or perhaps?

One of them quit coke only after he had looked death in the face. The other thinks he can control his consumption and wants to keep taking coke up until his dying day if possible. WORK HARD PLAY HARD tells the story of two coke addicts: A restless yuppie and a jaded clown. A milieu survey that visualizes what coke does to people and boldly blurs the boundaries between documentary and animation film. A provoking film that will become subject of controversial public discussion.

"Of Loving and Lying" is first and foremost about love. Director Annina Furrer traces our need for deep, lifelong connection in marriage and partnership and examines the widespread desire and claim for sexual fidelity. In doing so, she encounters a reality full of slips, flings and secret love affairs, in a world of dreams, longings and fantasies. How it is that practically all couples hold the concept of fidelity so dear and yet a surprisingly large number do not adhere to it? If we really want to love and grow old together, shouldn't we perhaps leave behind entrenched ways of thinking? Overcome inveterate possessiveness and strive for a new concept of fidelity? A fidelity that is not necessarily understood as sexual fidelity, but as trust, tenderness, honesty and freedom that we give each other as lovers?

In a world almost like ours, Jonah works for an agency that offers human relationships. When he's hired to serve as Nika's father, he begins to lose control of his tightly controlled life.

In Zimmerwald, idyllically situated in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, an ornithological meeting took place in the middle of the First World War. In reality, it was a secret conference against the war that united Lenin and other socialists from all over Europe. One hundred years later, a secondary school class searches for traces of this history.

It all begins in an empty theatre. In search of a manuscript that is supposed to change the world, Ben embarks on an odyssey. He encounters a flying fish, a telephone without a dial, an oracle called Enigma and a mystical canine figure in a deserted mountain landscape – reality and longings become inextricably intertwined on his visually stunning journey.

How to film war? «War and Peace» tells the story of the century-old relationship between cinema and war, from the time of their first encounter, way back in 1911 with the Italian invasion of Libya, up to the present day. Forging ahead from the images captured by the pioneers of cinema to today’s twitter feeds, following young soldiers as they are trained to film war, the alliance between cinema and war appears to be a powerful one.