Birds of Paradise

It’s summer in Geneva. Johanna works on the assembly line of a luxury watch factory and she’s not going on vacation. As she considers getting rid of her old VW Beetle, she decides instead to bring it back to life and confront the world of mechanics that once rejected her.

The film reveals the diversity, sound and melody of Romansh, one of Switzerland's four official national languages. In the age of globalization, Romansh, which is only spoken by a small minority, seems to be threatened with extinction. For the protagonists of this poem of images and sounds, however, the language is a symbol of their belonging, their identity and their resistance.