In addition to a few premieres, the Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) shows the best from the Cannes, Venice and Toronto festivals. This time there are two works by Swiss filmmakers that are particularly worth seeing.
Ever since stripper Ani (Mikey Madison) fell in love with a good-for-nothing oligarch’s son, her life has taken one bizarre turn after another.
“Anora” by Sean Baker
Sean Baker is the American director who brings to light those who are socially marginalized: children living in poverty in “The Florida Project”, prostitutes in “Tangerine” and now the stripper Ani (Mikey Madison) in “Anora”. , who gets involved with the spoiled oligarch’s son Ivan. They fall in love and get married in Las Vegas. What looks like “Pretty Woman,” but rough instead of cheesy, turns into a comedy when the absent parents send three bodyguards to visit their son to force the marriage to be dissolved. But things go tragicomically wrong. One of the three men on the clean-up team always stays in the background and that is precisely why he stands out. That’s not it. . .? Yes, Yura Borisov, who appeared in the wonderful road movie “Compartment No. 6» played the grumpy Russian with a soft heart. This heart beats louder and louder towards the end in “Anora”.
Runs on October 5th and 7th and October 12th with Mikey Madison in attendance.
“Frieda’s Fall” by Maria Brendle
The court is not interested in the fact that Frieda Keller (Julia Buchmann) killed her child out of desperation.
Condor Films
«Queer» by Luca Guadagnino
William (Daniel Craig) falls in love with Eugene (Drew Starkey), but he likes women.
Yannis Drakoulidis
Two years ago Luca Guadagnino presented his cannibalistic love story “Bones and All” at the ZFF, now he is back with “Queer”, the drama with Daniel Craig as the homosexual American William – greedy for life, drugs, sex – who finds himself in the in the 1950s to South America. There he makes ends meet with odd jobs, dives into the queer scene and falls in love with Eugene, a young countryman who actually likes women. But he is also attracted to William. The two go on a journey through South America in search of a plant with hallucinogenic effects. “Queer” is based on the autobiographical novel by William Burroughs and has been celebrated since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. No wonder, because Luca Guadagnino is a filmmaker who can do everything. And almost no one stages love and lust with all their side effects as sensitively and erotically as he does.
Runs October 5th, 6th and 12th.
“The Invasion” by Sergei Loznitsa
“The Invasion” tells the story of how the Ukrainian people carry on day after day during the two years of war.
Atoms & Void
Loznitsa was awarded the Russian Nika Film Prize in 2005 for his documentary film “Blokada” about the blockade of Leningrad during the Second World War. Now he, who has long been living in exile, is one of the Ukrainian filmmakers who document the Russian war of aggression against their homeland, often at the risk of their lives. After “Maidan” about the mass protests in Kiev in 2013/14 against the then ruler Viktor Yanukovych, he now tells in “The Invasion” how his compatriots live, suffer and defend themselves in the two years since the start of the war.
Runs October 4th, 9th and 12th.
Controversy over documentary film “Russians at War”
After heavy criticism on social media, the ZFF removed “Russians at War,” about Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war, from the program “due to security concerns.” Risk controversy and disruption or give in? This question is asked again and again at festivals, but films are rarely canceled. Examples: “The Antique”, Georgian film, allegedly under pressure from Russia, Venice 2024. “Bearing Witness” about the attacks on October 7th, Cannes 2024. “Sparta” by Ulrich Seidl, accusation of trivializing pedophilia, Toronto 2023. The vaccine-skeptical documentary “Vaxxed”, New York 2016. (dbc.)
“Bird” by Andrea Arnold
Bailey (Nykiya Adams) has no idea who she is or who she wants to be. She lacks role models.
Atushi Nishijima / House Bird Limited
Like Sean Baker, the British Andrea Arnold also deals with people on the fringes of society. With life in and despite poverty. Unlike Ken Loach, the great man of social drama, neither Baker nor Arnold are prone to kitsch. Even if Arnold’s works, whether “Fish Tank”, “Wuthering Heights” or “American Honey”, are told in almost dreamy, light images, she still relies on hard realism. “Bird” is about 12-year-old Bailey, who lives with her very young father Bug (Barry Keoghan) in a squat north of London. Bailey doesn’t care about acting like a girl, has no idea who she is or wants to be, and is quite lonely. Until one day she meets the lovable vagabond Bird (Franz Rogowski) in the moor. . .
Runs on October 8th in the presence of Andrea Arnold and on October 11th and 12th.
“Mother Mara” von Mirjana Karanovic
To numb her pain, the grieving Mara (Mirjana Karanovic) gets involved in an affair with a much younger man.
Cineworx
Things were going well for Mara (Mirjana Karanovic). The lawyer, a single parent, has worked for a prosperous life. But when her son Nemanja suddenly dies, everything comes to a standstill. In her grief, Mara begins an affair with the much younger fitness trainer Milan. He knew Nemanja, and Mara wants him to tell her about him. Does she seek Milan’s closeness because she finds him attractive, because she wants to numb her pain with sex, or because she wants to feel closer to her prodigal son through him? Swiss audiences will probably know Mirjana Karanovic from films such as “The Fräulein”, “Cure” or, most recently, “Mare” by Andrea Štaka. This time Štaka was the producer and Karanovic was the director. Another film that breaks the unwritten law that older women are not allowed to take younger lovers: «Babygirl» by Halina Reijn with Nicole Kidman as the sexually frustrated boss of a tech company who gets involved in a sadomasochistic affair with her intern (Harris Dickinson).
“Mother Mara” runs on October 7th, 8th and 10th. in the presence of the cast and crew and on October 12th. “Babygirl” runs on October 5th, 6th and 11th.
«The Apprentice» von Ali Abbasi
The wife Ivana (Marija Bakalowa) brutally feels the increasing infamy of Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan).
Apprentice Productions Ontario Inc.
If Ali Abbasi has his way, then it was the then New York star lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) who shaped the young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) into the unscrupulous man with no sense of shame or morals that the world knows him as today. “The Apprentice,” named after Trump’s reality show, shows the upstart himself as an apprentice who throws himself at the unscrupulous Cohn and wants to learn from him how to gain as much power as quickly as possible. At any price, as his wife Ivana (Marija Bakalowa) soon finds out brutally. You can call this biographical film striking, but its protagonists do not allow for subtle nuances. Cohn and Trump were and are like caricatures in reality, because both the homosexual star lawyer and the real estate speculator are afraid of nothing more than weakness. Abbasi humiliates Trump with this film. So successful that it didn’t find a distributor in the USA for a long time. Large companies in particular feared economic consequences if the ex-president were re-elected in November.
Runs on October 12th in the presence of the cast and crew and on October 13th.
“September 5” by Tim Fehlbaum
Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) and his team are responsible for the first-ever live broadcast of a terrorist attack.
Constantin Film
We know the pictures of the attackers at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. But who took them? The team of sports journalists from the American broadcaster ABC, led by Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), who were able to watch the Olympic village from the nearby television tower. In his breathlessly staged thriller, Basel native Tim Fehlbaum recounts the almost 24 hours during which the team of reporters, together with a German translator (Leonie Benesch), have to decide under extreme time pressure what to show and what not. It is the first live broadcast of a terrorist attack. Journalists want to portray the truth, but at the same time they know that with their selection of images for the world public, they are also creating truth. This thriller is about this responsibility. “September 5” is set in the past, but deals with questions that are even more pressing today than they were back in the analogue age. Today, information is shared extremely quickly and by everyone who has access to the Internet.
Runs on October 6th in the presence of the cast and crew and on October 9th and 12th.
«The Room Next Door» von Pedro Almodóvar
After years of separation, the terminally ill Martha (Tilda Swinton) seeks to be close to her old friend Ingrid (Julianne Moore) again.
More Churches / Desire
At the Venice Film Festival, the audience clapped for this drama for 17 minutes, then Pedro Almodóvar won the Golden Lion for his first English-language film. His adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel is about Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton), who used to work together at a New York magazine, became friends and shared a lover before parting ways. Martha became a war reporter, Ingrid an author. After years, Martha gets back in touch with Ingrid. She is terminally ill and wants her former friend with her when she seeks euthanasia sometime in the near future. Ingrid is overwhelmed. All of this takes place in front of a dramatically worsening climate crisis and in exquisitely colorfully furnished apartments. Love, death and colors. Typically Almodovar.
Runs October 8th, 9th, 13th.
“Riefenstahl” by Andres Veiel
Is Leni Riefenstahl lying to herself or the public?
Imdb
When Leni Riefenstahl died at the age of 101, she left behind a large and apparently well-sorted archive. The director Andres Veiel and the producer Sandra Maischberger evaluated this and processed the material into a very dense documentary about Hitler’s favorite director. But can the film really add much new to what we know about this woman, or does it contribute to Riefenstahl becoming a complete myth? Opinions are likely to differ. You can find out what the spiritual descendants of Nazis are doing in… «Homegrown» (Documentary Film Competition). The American filmmaker Michael Premo portrays three members of the right-wing extremist Proud Boys movement who were involved in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Riefenstahl” will be shown on October 5th and 6th in the presence of the crew and on
10/13 “Homegrown” runs on October 4th in the presence of Michael Premo and on October 5th, 9th and 10th.
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