Schlagen und Abtun

Expeditions to the heart of the country with the author Pedro Lenz, who lives above the Flügelrad Restaurant next to the railway station in Olten. An oscillating snapshot of the prevailing mood in Swiss society emerges from the interplay between stories of everyday life and Lenz’s reflective texts in Swiss dialect, replete with laconic poesy and a tinge of yearning.

On the way through a world of sounds and noise – with Manfred Eicher, the oustanding discoverer and mediator of contemporary music and founder of the music label ECM. On this journey we are meeting musicians and composers, but also people and places which are connected with him and with each other. We are encountering stories, landscapes, cities, disputes and hugs, tranquillity, hectic pace, work, self-doubt, joy, passion.

Bratsch, located in the Leuk mountains, is an Upper Valais village with a magnificent view of the Rhone Valley. Just one hundred people still lived in the village in 2015. Since the municipality merger with Gampel down in the valley, the school building has stood empty. Something was about to change.

Robert, a masseur who is hard of hearing, is unaware that he has inherited millions. Four people want to take it from him: stockbroker Kuhl, his employee Späh and their friends Anna and Iris. Späh wants his girlfriend Iris to marry Robert in America in order to get half of the money. After a murder that Späh commits, but of which Robert seems suspicious, Robert actually flees to America, but not with Iris, but with Anna, who has since gotten wind of the affair. Robert and Anna marry in Las Vegas, and it is only back in Munich that Robert finds out about his inheritance. Robert leaves Anna, Späh shoots Kuhl and there is a showdown between Robert and Späh on a French island.

A high-rise apartment built in the 1960s provides housing for 2500 people from 42 nations. Separated from the city by a river and bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, everyone attempts to live and survive in their own way. Foreigners who have a go at being Swiss, and Swiss who observe with scepticism. They meet in the corner shop run by an Iraqi living in exile, send their kids to a children’s club managed by a missionary, and old drinking mates meet regularly over a beer in the neighbourhood’s only bar. Despite all the differences, they are rather proud of the fact that they come from here.

A three-year journey with actor Bruno Ganz. He plays various roles in various places, but he also plays Bruno Ganz – filming and directing friends. Again and again he works on the role of Dr. Faust, the figure who – speaking for us all – desperately wants to discover “what holds the world together at the core”. A thousand days of searching for one's own destiny, with despair as the only companion, and placing hope in the creative power of poetry.

A young actress's sudden enthusiasm for yodeling is dampened when she encounters the extremely traditional roots of this folk custom. She continues to practice yodeling, but cannot avoid facing the consequences of her actions and searching for a path between the present and the past. A remarkable, largely entertaining documentary feature film about a folk custom that is often ridiculed, especially by younger people.