Eating the Silence

Radiograph of a Family

"Mother married a photo of Father," says director Firouzeh Khosrovani in the opening of this deeply personal documentary. She's not speaking metaphorically though. Her mother Tayi literally married a portrait of Hossein in Teheran -he was in Switzerland studying radiology and was unable to travel back to his homeland for the wedding. The event illustrates the abyss that still exists in their marriage: Hossein is a secular progressive and Tayi a devout, traditional Muslim.

Nightlight

Young brothers Konrad and Baschi get into a fight that spirals out of control and leads to dire consequences. While the world outside their home crumbles, Konrad has just one chance to right his wrong.

Iraqi Odyssey

Tracing the emigrations of his family over more than half a century, this riveting documentary epic from acclaimed expatriate Iraqi filmmaker Samir pays moving homage to the frustrated democratic dreams of a people successively plagued by the horrors of dictatorship, war and foreign occupation of Iraq.

Back to Switzerland

Madrid, 1974. Six years have passed since Martin and his family have returned to Spain from Switzerland. A visit to their adopted country will bring complications.

Baghdad in My Shadow

A wide variety of Iraqis in exile meet at Café Abu Nawas in London, including the architect Amal, the poet Taufiq and the gay IT specialist Muhannad. They all want to finally feel free in London - something that was denied them in their homeland. But adversity threatens...

Once I Entered in a Garden

Fantasizes an 'Old' Middle East, wherein communities were not divided along ethnic and religious lines; a Middle East in which even metaphorical borders had no place

Facing Mecca

Pensioner Roli comes to Fareed's assistance when the Syrian refugee is faced with the burial of his Muslim wife. Together they stumble into a bewildering forest of Swiss bureaucracy to which Roli finds beautifully simple answer.

Bon Voyage

Jonas and Silvia are enjoying a wonderful sailing holiday in the Mediterranean sea. But while sailing through the night, far away from land, they discover an overloaded refugee boat, close to sinking. They are shocked, but too afraid to help. So they call the coast guards but lose the boat out of sight into the darkness of the night. In the early morning they find themselves drifting through an ocean of dead bodies. The refugee boat has sunk. Jonas and Silvia manage to pull a few survivors out of the cold water: Syrians. This rescue marks the beginning of a dramatic conflict between the hopes and dreams of the refugees, and the fears and ideals of the holiday sailors.

Go Home

Nada is going home. Or at least she wants to. When she comes back to Lebanon, she realizes she's a foreigner in her own country. But there's still a place she calls home: an abandoned house in ruins, haunted by the presence of her grandfather who disappeared mysteriously during the civil war. Something happened in this house. Something violent. A young woman searching for the truth and discovering herself.

The Saint of the Impossible

A murder, a police raid and a photo of a mysterious girl; a young mother must piece together her twin son's secret romantic life, in order to find out what happened to them.

Shalom Allah

When Muslims are shown in the media, they are often portrayed as the bad guys. And yet every year, over a hundred Swiss people convert to Islam. «I testify that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammad is His prophet.« The heroes of Shalom Allah study the new religion and begin their journey into Islam.

Fensterlos

It has been 35 years since Maria left her newborn in a baby window. With the help of the authorities, she tracks down her daughter and meets Caroline for the first time. A DNA test is to prove their kinship. An increasingly close relationship develops between Maria and Caroline. However, unfulfilled expectations and quiet accusations threaten to break it time and again. The two women struggle together – until the result of the DNA test is available.

Kings of the Gambia

The ten-piece afro-helvetic band “King Kora” starts a tour through Gambia, the home country of its kora player and singer Lamin Jobarteh. The band travels for nine days on a boat on the river Gambia, stopping at eight villages and cities along the shore to perform, and finally giving three large concerts on the coast. But what they find in this country does not always meet their expectations…

The Blind Ferryman

The blind ferryman Ayoub lives in the swamps of southern Iraq. One day he meets a mysterious woman and falls for her. Nobody believes that she exists. When even his neighbors turn away from him, he carries out a fatal act in desperation.

Vivre le Piano

At the age of six, Adilia Alieva recorded her first radio performance. At the age of seven she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on stage, conducted by Leo Ginzburg. The story of this playful person’s life depicts her longings, dreams and experiences and accompanies her on her journey back to Russia, where she reunites with her sister after 17 years of absence, while being confronted with a dramatically changed city of Moscow.

Traces of Responsibility

The interactive roadmovie follows the trail of a convicted war criminal with ties to Switzerland. On a journey through contemporary Rwanda, the viewer decides how deeply he wants to immerse himself in the story.

The Omega Man

Due to an experimental vaccine, Dr. Robert Neville is the only human survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. Besides him, only a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people remain; sensitive to light, and homicidally psychotic.

Black Death

As the plague decimates medieval Europe, rumours circulate of a village immune from the plague. There is talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to raise the dead. A fearsome knight joined by a cohort of soldiers and a young monk are charged by the church to investigate. Their journey is filled with danger, but it's upon entering the village that their true horror begins.

Patient Zero

After an unprecedented global pandemic has turned the majority of humankind into violent infected beings, Morgan, a man gifted with the ability to speak the infected's new language, leads the last survivors on a hunt for patient zero and a cure.

Contagion

As an epidemic of a lethal airborne virus - that kills within days - rapidly grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself.