2002 Summary of Swiss Films at International Festivals

The statistics for 19 Swiss films (10 fiction, 9 documentary, and one short fiction film) nominated for important international festivals (table one) and awarded prizes (table two) show in detail:
While «Aime ton père» by Jacob Berger and «Oltre il confine» by Rolando Colla competed at the Locarno Film Festival, «La brûlure du vent» by Silvio Soldini made the Berlin International Film Festival, one of the five major European film events. At Cannes International Film festival, the largest and most important festival worldwide, Switzerland was represented only marginally this year with the short fiction film «La mort en exil» by Ayten Mutlu which was shown as part of the emerging filmmakers selection «Cinéfondation».

Traditionally, Swiss documentary films have received considerable attention at some of the most important festivals worldwide. Marcel Schüpbach’s film «B comme Béjart» received international acclaim at the 2002 Venice International Film Festival after Switzerland was absent from its official selection during the last five years. At the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, the most important international venue for documentary film, two Swiss contributions are competing this year: «Forget Baghdad» by Samir and «Von Werra» by Werner Schweizer. Remarkably, the quality of Swiss documentary filmmaking has been consistently recognized with awards by international juries. For the current year, six documentary films and one fiction film have been honored with one or more awards.

In addition to being represented at major international film events, as for example in Rotterdam, Mar del Plata, Moscow, Karlovy Vary, and Montreal, Swiss films were invited to be screened at more than one hundred festivals all over the world this year.

Zurich, November 2002