Lionel Baier

A behind-the-scenes look at the of how the Paris Opera is run under the direction of Stephane Lissner.

Seventeen-year-old Mathieu Reymond lies brutally battered and raped in a field of reeds. It is only after his release from hospital that the memories come back, unannounced and fragmentary, but still so precise that regular meetings with two police officers not only allow the perpetrator’s identikit image to take shape, but also the chronology of the crime itself.

A man releases a huge balloon in the dark night… In the south of France, two men lead us on a strange treasure hunt through crisscrossing roads, armed with GPSes and maps. An observational and absurd road movie, where it is a matter of climbing up trees, celestial explosions and mysterious links between men separated by hundreds of kilometres.

As winter sets in and P.A. sees the world shifting around him, he starts to observe strange phenomena in the environment. The changes are imperceptible at first, but gradually his whole world seems to be on the brink.

Two imprisoned brothers, with no dreams or realities, seek a bit of air to breathe. What must die suffocates. What wishes to live hopes. A tunnel opens in front of them. They fall into it, sink into it, forget themselves. A light envelops them, then eternity.

This coming-of-age drama deals with a young man, realizing who he really is and which things he will never do...

Competitive bodybuilder Léa Pearl is preparing to compete for the prestigious Miss Heaven title. Her coach, Al, a former bodybuilding star, hopes that, thanks to Léa, he will be back in the spotlight once again. But at the last minute, Léa's ex arrives with their son Joseph, who she hasn't seen in four years.

David Miller wants to die and chooses assisted euthanasia. He planned everything: the place, the time and the manner. However, nothing goes right. With Esperanza, member of the association, and Tréplev, young prostitute, David embarks on his ultimate night with total strangers.

Two young boys have stolen some expensive scarves and are being pursued. To get out of town, they hijack a young lady’s vehicle. She ends up following them as they flee.

Philippe, a depressed young man, feels quite oppressed in his flat since his roommate has a new girlfriend. Irritated by her, Philippe destroys the fondue they were supposed to share. He finds himself wandering around the city, looking for someone to share his solitude. His nocturnal encounters will lead him to accept himself as he is.

The prison in Volterra, Tuscany, is home to a unique artistic practice: It is within these walls that Armando Punzo, shut away for three decades with men serving long sentences, has created his plays.

Is it possible to replicate the human brain on a computer? To connect it to machines? Research aimed at understanding the functioning of our biological brain is being matched by spectacular progress in the development of artificial intelligence.

Five days before D-Day, the day of the last voyage of the Order of Sirius, a sect nestled in the Vaudoise Alps, Switzerland. Five days during which a community of 48 people, women, men, children, fed with esotericism and guided by a narcissistic guru, will test their faith and be deprived of their identity. Five days in which every gesture will be the last. Sirius is inspired by the massacre of the Order of the Solar Temple in 1994 in western Switzerland.

Avril, an idealistic lawyer dedicated to lost causes, agrees to defend Cosmos, a dog that has bitten three people, leading to the first canine trial. She has no choice but to win the case, as otherwise, her unusual client will be put down.

A permission, an eternal return, it is in this suspended context, out of space and time, that the gathering of three young men happens, under the bright and suffocating lights of the bank district and the luxury boutiques of the city of Geneva, a symbol of a cold and radical social cleavage. Between masculinity, violence and ethic, everything seems to be made in order for the friends to deconstruct the universe, alone, at the top of the world.

A view of the religious tensions between Muslims and Buddhist through the portrait of the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, leader of anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.

How does it feel to be alive? Bloc B is the setting for nine encounters, somewhere in the satellite city “la Bourdonnette”, in the outskirts of Lausanne. The film was written for some of their residents and their neighborhood. In order to know what it feels like to be alive.

A small town nestling in the middle of a snowy expanse. In a crowded hall, some musicians are warming up. Cacophony. The conductor calls for silence. On a river bank at dawn, an old man is fishing alone, alert. Nearby, a band of Indians are marching to music for the carnival. A young hunter stalks her prey on the edge of a forest, while in his bedroom, a teenager struggles with his tie to the deafening sound of symphonic heavy metal rock. Between community and moments of solitude, through a series of lively Friday evening rehearsals and the interminable republican ceremonies, L'harmonie takes us to the heart of this colorful community in search of harmony.

An eccentric family portrait set during the May 1968 protests in Paris. A nine-year-old boy stays with his grandparents and uncles while his parents protest. When an illustrious guest seeks refuge in the apartment, the family’s dynamics change.

Lionel is a happy gay man with a great career and an open-minded family that accepts his loyal lover, Serge. But things start to unravel when he meets a pretty Polish immigrant who is about to be deported and decides to marry her.

A group of high school students meet to participate in the national parade with their school. A student, is bullied by the teacher because of her nationality. They react, defend her and the conflict becomes intense. To avoid the consequences, they decide to run away. They settle on the top of a nearby hill and spend the rest of the day there, as an act of escapism. Up there, they seem to have forgotten their anxieties and problems, as if they were in another world.

It is April 1974 and Julie Dujonc-Renens, young feminist journalist and the cunning Joseph-Marie Cauvin, leading reporter for the Swiss radio, have been sent to Portugal to investigate Switzerland’s aid to poor countries. Sparks fly during the bus trip with Bob, sound engineer approaching retirement. The projects financed by Switzerland prove to be calamitous and the workers’ revolution that suddenly breaks out doesn’t help, obliging our heroes to disregard first the radio’s management, and then their own codes of conduct.

Since he is 9 years old, David Miller has known the date of the day he dies. As it nears, he meets those he cares about for the last time, obsessed by the idea of learning how to tie a tie and by the the fall into water of the Quebecker filmmaker Claude Jutra. Shot with a cellphone over a decade, from Lausanne to Ouagadougou, Low Cost (Claude Jutra) is a small fiction about the market value of a human life in a time when everything is discounted. Life is priceless, death, however, negotiates…

Adri and Beamo are two brothers who like to hang out and challenge each other. When Adri asks his little brother to enter an abandoned house and bring back an object, the latter will make a strange discovery that will haunt their night.

Geneva, April 2015. In the hushed corridors of a luxury hotel, high-tension international negotiations get underway between the United States and Iran, suspected of secretly developing the atomic weapon. Alexandra Weiss, head of the Swiss diplomatic mission, is trying to maintain a fragile balance between the parties operating behind the scenes. The unexpected arrival of her former love, Payam Sanjabi, an Iranian engineer whose life is under threat, will complicate her task dangerously...