Talking to Ivan Madeo
The producer on Contrast Film’s new series
27.02.2025
Following the tremendous success of the historical espionage series DAVOS 1917, Contrast Film is launching GAME OVER – THE FALL OF CREDIT SUISSE, a topical narrative as a four-part docuseries and as a feature-length documentary for the cinema – once again with great international potential.
How did you go about approaching this particular topic?
GAME OVER – THE FALL OF CREDIT SUISSE is a unique collaboration by which we were able to combine our production expertise with the journalistic know-how of the Tamedia media company and the artistic talent of director Simon Helbling.
Thanks to this collaboration, we were able to create an investigative documentary about a Swiss-based topic that had international repercussions. A documentary about the corporate culture of a major Swiss bank that was one of the largest in the world, considered systemically relevant and, before its demise, almost plunged the world into an economic crisis. Here in Switzerland, we are often not even aware of this international impact.
GAME OVER will be released as a feature-length documentary in Swiss cinemas on March 27, 2025. The series version will go online two months later. This allows us to serve different target groups with different needs while using the same compelling subject matter. This goes for audiences in Switzerland as well as abroad.
Was it a challenge to document politically explosive material like this after such a short time?
Credit Suisse had been exerting pressure on Swiss politics, the media and the economy for years, even decades. So you can imagine the pressure on a production company like ours when tackling such a topic cinematically.
The series is being produced with a Swiss media company. Is that a first?
It is certainly unusual for filmmakers to work so closely with a media company on content as we have done. But when it comes to an investigative film about the finance industry, it’s a great advantage to be able to rely on an expert like the economic journalist Arthur Rutishauser and his international research team. This raised the level of fact-finding and accessibility for the protagonists to a whole new level. And as filmmakers, we were able to concentrate on artistic issues such as characters, dramaturgy and realisation.
GOLD is another series with an explicit Swiss connection that you’re developing.
At Contrast Film, we have always focused on Swiss-based content with international relevance. This ranges from series like DAVOS 1917 or GAME OVER, feature films like THE CIRCLE or creative documentaries like STRAY BODIES: our choice of topics is and remains very broad.
Our fictional series GOLD, written by Christian Wehrlin and Pascal Glatz, is a thriller set against the backdrop of the international gold industry. Switzerland refines 70 percent of all the gold mined worldwide. We submitted the series in the European Writers Club competition, and it was a prize-winner at the Geneva International Film Festival, where it received a writing grant for series from the Suissimage and SSA Societies.
Are you planning further series projects?
Yes, and the variety is particularly exciting: we have several fictional series, a few docuseries and an animated series in the works.
Have the production conditions for series in Switzerland changed in recent years?
The production conditions have changed a lot: in recent years, the national and international markets have become increasingly divided into very high-quality and very low-cost content. There is little in between that works. When it comes to low-cost content, the difficulties in Switzerland, as a high-price island, are fairly well-known.
As for high-quality content, the challenge lies in the fact that national broadcasters are targeting a national audience while also aiming to meet today’s viewing habits, which are shaped by international productions. But there is often a lack of money for this level of production quality. By way of comparison, international streamers may want to offer local topics, but they can usually only be dealt with by local teams who often lack the international production standards.
In this mixed environment, finding the right projects and realising them to such a high standard so that they satisfy everyone, all the way from the broadcasting partners to the viewers, proves to be a challenge. But an exciting one!