The Maddock Manifesto

The sun enchants and warms, as it burns. Love and ambition as well. The female figure and antihero Zou, like the other two main characters, Anselm and Gustav, are the perfect prototypes of a generation. Dreaming, lost and bored in a society of “freedom”, where globalization and the revolution of social media have strongly shaken the love paradigma.

1945 Zero hour. Europe is reduced to rubble. Thirty million displaced and uprooted people. At the heart of this ravaged continent lies Switzerland. This small neutral country, which has been all but spared by the war, becomes a hub for Nazi war criminals, Allied Secret Services and Holocaust survivors.

In 2003, musician Markus still has big dreams. He stands in for his hoarse sister Eva at the MusicStar casting. His performance fails completely and from then on his life is paved with failures, bad luck and mishaps. When, on his fortieth birthday, he is given the opportunity to contact his younger self by text message, he suddenly sees this as a chance to change his previously botched life and become a star. As he tries to make himself a star, he erases true love from his life.

Former undertaker and ex-police officer Luc Conrad comes back to Switzerland to attend a birthday party in a hotel. When the hotel manager dies under mysterious circumstances, he secretly begins to investigate whether it was a murder.

The neo-noir thriller EARLY BIRDS tells the story of the two wildly different women Annika and Caro, who become embroiled in a web of unpredictable events following a night out on the town. As the two flee together from the police, drug dealers and themselves, they're confronted by the collision of two worlds: their personal freedom and unrelenting violence.

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.

After WWII, Helene is ready to do anything to start a new life. As a young woman, she came to the exciting Berlin of the roaring 20s, wanting to become a doctor, and soon fell in love with a man named Karl. But the course of her life took a drastic, irreversible turn when the Nazis came into power.

Ferdi thinks he's ugly – but likes the fact Jona is interested in him. Maybe because she's blind. What Ferdi doesn't suspect: She's just pretending to be blind to be able to live cheaply in subsidized housing. How long can she maintain her charade? Can love, which is supposed to make you blind, even work out that way? Director Tom Lass takes a closer look, shooting with blind actors and old Berlin buddies, acting the lead himself – paying tribute to a way of life beyond our way of seeing the world.

The loss of youth and innocence can be played for comedy or tragedy. The stunning black-and-white cinematography and hypnotic electric guitar that fill "Left Foot Right Foot", as portentous as they are beautiful, are a pretty clear indication which side of the coin photographer Germinal Roaux intends to focus on in his first feature.

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?

Simon has a love-hate relationship with his father. When his parents go on holiday, Simon initiates a seductive game of cat-and-mouse with his father’s mistress and gets disastrously tangled up in the sticky family network.

Liv Sandor, 38, following an argument with her boyfriend, sets off to wander the city, observing passers-by and reminiscing about her past loves. In all her relationships, there was always a turning point, when things started going downhill. On the streets of Zurich Liv faces her fears, joys and demons. In her third feature film, Swiss director Anna Luif tells the tragi-comical trajectory of an independent woman who learns to love on life’s emotional rollercoaster. A rhythmic, colourful, collage-like journey into the mind and soul of modern women.

A director desperately tries to replicate his debut success by strictly adhering to the golden rules of arthouse filmmaking on set. But luck is not on his side. Neither the cast nor the crew believe in the project – and nobody wants to film the nude scene that, according to the director, is absolutely essential!