Toronto / San Sebastian
Swiss premieres on both sides of the Atlantic
03.09.2025
World premieres for Swiss productions will be celebrated at two major autumn film festivals: Toronto International Film Festival TIFF (September 4-14) and the San Sebastian International Film Festival (September 19-27). Zamo Mkhwanazi’s LAUNDRY will be screened in the TIFF Discovery section, while Milagros Mumenthaler’s THE CURRENTS will be screened at both festivals.
THE CURRENTS (LAS CORRIENTES) by Milagros Mumenthaler will celebrate its world premiere in the TIFF Platform section. Ten films are in the running for the Platform Award, presented by an international jury. The film embarks on a journey into the past of an Argentine fashion designer who returns to Buenos Aires a changed woman after a traumatic incident in Switzerland. THE CURRENTS is Mumenthaler’s third feature film and, like her previous films, is a Swiss-Argentine coproduction by Geneva-based Alina film (Eugenia Mumenthaler, David Epiney), RTS Radio Télévision Suisse and Ruda cine in Buenos Aires.
The Swiss-South African coproduction LAUNDRY (UHLANJULULO) by Zamo Mkhwanazi will celebrate its world premiere in the Discovery section. Mkhwanazi’s directorial debut is set in Johannesburg in 1968 under the apartheid regime and tells the story of a young man torn between saving his family’s laundry business and pursuing his own dreams of becoming a musician.
LAUNDRY was produced by Geneva-based Akka Films (Philippe Coeytaux), together with Kude Media, Johannesburg, and RTS Radio Télévision Suisse.
Read the interview with the director here
Screened in the TIFF Centrepiece programme will be MEMORY OF PRINCESS MUMBI by Damien Hauser, which recently premiered in the Giornate degli Autori in Venice.
Peter Mettler’s “magnum opus”
The third world premiere in Toronto is Peter Mettler’s essayistic documentary film WHILE THE GREEN GRASS GROWS: A DIARY IN SEVEN PARTS, screened in the TIFF Docs section. TIFF has described the seven-hour cinematic diary as “the magnum opus from visionary non-fiction filmmaker … an innovative, intimate, intercontinental epic.”
An earlier film with the same title comprising Parts 1&6 was honoured with the Grand Prix at Visions du Réel in Nyon and the RIDM in Montreal, as well as the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig. The film was produced by maximage in Zurich (Cornelia Seitler, Brigitte Hofer), together with Mettler’s production company Grimthorpe Film in Toronto.
The César award-winning Swiss actress Ella Rumpf stars at TIFF alongside Angelina Jolie and French actors Louis Garrel and Vincent Lindon in the film COUTURE. The US-French production directed by Alice Winocour is set in the Paris fashion world.
Europe! Hub of the EFP
SWISS FILMS is taking part in the EUROPE! Hub of the European Film Promotion EFP, the single point of contact for the European film industry, as part of the festival’s Industry programme.
In order to boost the visibility of European cinema on the North American market, EFP is spotlighting 13 European films screened in the festival programme, including THE CURRENTS, which is represented by world sales company Luxbox.
San Sebastian International Film Festival
THE CURRENTS will also be screened in the Official Selection and celebrating its European premiere at the renowned San Sebastian Film Festival. This marks the third invitation for director Milagros Mumenthaler to this major film festival in Spain.
The second Swiss production at the SSIFF is the award-winning short film MOM DANCES (MAMAN DANSE) by ECAL graduate Mégane Brügger. The film will be screened in the festival’s NEST section, the international competition for short films by film students.