Leipzig – major showcase for films from Switzerland

Seventeen Swiss film productions will be screened at the 56th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (October 28 - November 3, 2013). Kaveh Bakhtiari’s “L’escale” will be shown in the Young Cinema Competition and presented by the film’s producer Heinz Dill. The film, portraying Iranian migrants and their gruelling wait in Athens, is one of the eleven entries in this section and thus continues here its striking international career (cf. SWISS FILMS News on October 8, 2013).

Golden Dove for Best Animated Documentary?
The festival in Leipzig was the first to introduce a main prize– a Golden Dove – for the Best Animated Documentary Film. Swiss directors Kathrin Hürlimann and Marcel Barelli will present their animated documentaries personally to the festival audience: in her biographic film “Grandpère,” Hürlimann interweaves animation with historical documents; and in “Vigia,” Barelli (“Gypaetus Helveticus”) tells the story of a bee seeking a more comfortable place to live. Nine films are competing for the award for Best Animated Documentary Film.

Two animation films in competition
With “Hasta Santiago” in the International Animated Film Competition, Mauro Carraro portrays a pilgrimage on the Way of St. James. Michael Frei’s “Plug & Play” is also in the running for a Golden Dove. Rounding off the Swiss presence with animation films in Leipzig are “Frühzug” by Delia Hess; “Ransom” by Dustin Rees; “The Kiosk” by Anete Melece; as well as “The Smortlybacks” by Ted Sieger and Wouter Dierickx.
 
Open-ended experiments
Peter Liechti has been a welcome guest at the Leipzig Festival for many years. The homage called “Open-Ended Experiments” spans his works from “Signers Koffer” (1996) to “Hans im Glück” (2003) and “The Sound Of Insects” (2009) as well as his current film “Vaters Garten.” Liechti will also conduct a Master Class.

Journey to the safest place
The two feature-length documentary films “Die Reise zum sichersten Ort der Erde” by Edgar Hagen – which recently celebrated its world premiere in Hof – and “Zum Beispiel Suberg” by Simon Baumann, as well as the medium-length documentary “Elégie pour un phare” by Dominique de Rivaz and the short film “Keine Anzeichen” by Muriel Kunz will be screened in the non-competition programme at Germany’s largest festival for documentary film productions. The directors of these documentary films will attend the festival.

Sales platform for Swiss documentary films
A total of 88 films from 34 countries in the five competition categories are in the running for awards amounting to a total of almost EUR 70,000. The festival also organises the Dok Market, an important sales platform for Swiss documentary films.

Zurich, October 24, 2013