Switzerland is presently the only country in the world where suicide assistance is legal. Exit: The Right to Die profiles that nation's EXIT organization, which for over twenty years has provided volunteers who counsel and accompany the terminally-ill and severely handicapped towards a death of their choice.
In 1877 a Swiss aristocrat, Alfred von Rodt, became the governor of the remote Chilean island that gave birth to the legend of Robinson Crusoe. Exiled from his country and family, Von Rodt strived to build a utopian “little kingdom” until his death, but failed and lost his entire fortune. The film tells the story of this outcast through the lives of his descendants, who today seek political autonomy and a preservation of their indigenous identity.
Switzerland still carries out special flights, where passengers, dressed in diapers and helmets, are chained to their seats for 40 hours at worst. They are accompanied by police officers and immigration officials. The passengers are flown to their native countries, where they haven't set foot in in up to twenty years, and where their lives might be in danger. Children, wives and work are left behind in Switzerland. Near Geneva, in Frambois prison, live 25 illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. They are offered an opportunity to say goodbye to their families and return to their native countries on a regular flight, escorted by plain-clothes police officers. If they refuse this offer, the special flight is arranged fast and unexpectedly. The stories behind the locked cells are truly heartbreaking.
It is winter at an emergency shelter for the homeless in Lausanne. Every night at the door of this little-known basement facility the same entry ritual takes place, resulting in confrontations which can sometimes turn violent. Those on duty at the shelter have the difficult task of “triaging the poor”: the women and children first, then the men. Although the total capacity at the shelter is 100, only 50 “chosen ones” will be admitted inside and granted a warm meal and a bed. The others know it will be a long night.
Switzerland was one of the last countries in the world to grant women the right to vote. This film guides us through a century of Swiss history, tracing the imprint left by the women who fought for the right to leave hearth and home – and by the men who did everything they could to send them back – until they gained legal equality, whose implementation seems to be in question still today.
"Prud’hommes" is an immersion into the heart of a judicial court that handles disputes between employers and employees. This specific jurisdiction is a place of confrontation where the tensions, suffering and revolts that span the world of employment are exposed. In search of justice or recognition, employees speak out and face their employer face to face. This unique theatre plunges us into a real human drama and forces us to reflect upon today's society.
Behind the scenes of two court cases involving activists in the fight against climate change.
The personal stories of the people from all around the world waiting for a decision in an asylum-seekers centre in one of most restrictive countries in the world, Switzerland.
In Lausanne, Switzerland, a group of young women in their twenties embark, while working or studying, on making ethical and dissident pornographic films.
At dawn, a cannon shot shatters the plain. Horses gallop across the beaten earth. Eva, 21 years old, wants to join the hunters of the Imperial Guard, a Napoleonic regiment of historical re-enactment reserved for men. In her quest for romanticism, she hides her identity so that she can set foot in the stirrup, braving a 200-year-old ban. In this world of gunpowder and smoke, Eva discovers herself as she has always dreamed: a handsome soldier at the side of a beautiful princess.
Some people think of Switzerland as a heaven on earth, but what do the Swiss themselves imagine life after death will be like? To answer this question, documentary filmmaker Stéphane Goël spoke with large numbers of his compatriots – all of them in the twilight of their life – about how they picture the hereafter. The result is a series of remarkable, poignant and funny conversations in which the interviewees open up about their dreams, passions and fears.
Ambassade questions the role of diplomatic relations and territorial representation. Through the prism of the American hostage crisis in Iran between 1979 and 1981, this film focuses on Switzerland’s role as an intermediary in resolving this international conflict. Pascal Décosterd was a young Swiss diplomat sent to Tehran in 1979. Today, recently retired, he is embarking on a journey to try to understand the events of which he was one of the actors. Flavio Meroni was number 2 of the Swiss Embassy in Iran, today he is writing a book on negotiations to free the hostages. In their company we visit places in the United States, Iran and Switzerland, we meet the protagonists and retrace the different stages of these three years that shaped a new global balance. Behind the scenes of these events, where small and great history mingle, Ambassade offers insights into the importance of the human being at the heart of major diplomatic mechanisms.
The film recounts the fates of five of the protagonists of the film “Special Flight” following their expulsion from Switzerland. Having been wrenched away from the country in which they had lived and from their children because they had no papers, they are found again in Senegal or Kosovo, in Gambia or Cameroun, destitute and cut off from their families, sometimes even having been tortured upon arrival. This film broaches the private lives of these broken men and testifies to the brutality of a migration policy that is common in Switzerland and in Europe.
The road from the kitchen to parliament was long and rocky for Swiss women - four generations had to fight for the male electorate to grant women the right to political participation. Stéphane Goël's documentary traces this path with sensitivity and humor.
