Swiss Cinema – A Band Apart

IndieLisboa will present, inside its Emerging Cinema section, a special focus composed by films from a distinct and close group of filmmakers: Ursula Meier, Jean-Stéphane Bron, Frédéric Mermoud and Lionel Baier, four Swiss directors that have established the collective Bande à part Films. All this filmmakers, despite their distinguishable voices, are used to direct films which communicate with a large audience. This is the restructuring of a film tradition, perfecting itself without being unpopular: keeping the realism that truly touches the spectator.

IndieLisboa considers that these filmmakers and the new Swiss Cinema has had weak media and audience attention in Portugal. A situation the festival is trying to change. This initiative doesn’t intend to present a full retrospective of all the work of these four directors, but to join their different film universes.

Ursula Meier and Lionel Baier are among the program guests, the latter responsible for a special screening of ECAL's short films. These short films were guided by the four directors and they will be premiering in IndieLisboa.

The presentation of this program is made possible by the support of Swiss Films and the Switzerland Embassy in Lisbon.

Program

Garçon stupide, by Lionel Baier, 2004, France, Switzerland
The stupid boy is Loïc. Someone who confuses desire and plesure, friendship and sex, admiration and success. Loïc is the one trying to make up for everything that life didn’t give him, even before he started to grow.

Comme des voleurs (à l'est), by Lionel Baier, 2006, Switzerland
Lionel discovers his polish origins and changes all his life due this new existence.

Un autre homme, by Lionel Baier, 2008, Switzerland
François does not know a thing about cinema but writes film reviews for a small newspaper. One the other hand, Rosa is a film critic. A perverse relationship grows between them.

Toulouse, 2011, Switzerland + Low Cost, 2010, Switzerland, by Lionel Baier
Toulouse: August 1st. Cécile and her daughter Marion bought an old Ford Taunus. The trip cost to start.
Low Cost: Since he is 9 years old he knows perfectly the day of his dead. Till that day comes he spends time with the people he loves, obsessing with the neck tie and with the dead of the filmmaker Claude Jutra.

Les épaules solides, 2002, France, Belgium, Switzerland + Tous à table, 2001, Belgium, Switzerland, by Ursula Meier
Les épaules solides: Sabine, a young athlete, wants to be the best and faster in the world, at whatever cost.
Tous à table: A birthday dinner party with friends. They drink, sing and smoke, until the moment for a charade comes. They all want to solve it by using their own obsessions and the dinner mood changes.

Mon frére se marie, 2006, France, Switzerland, by Jean-Stéphane Bron
In Jean-Stéphane Bron’s first fiction, Vinh’s marriage, a young vietnamit adopted by a swiss couple when he was 7, and a family trying to keep up the appearances while going through a lot of changes are in the hub.

Complices, 2009, Switzerland, France + Son jour à elle, 1998, Switzerland, by Frédéric Mermoud
Complices: Vincent and Rebecca fall in love at first sight in a cyber coffee-shop. Two months later, Vincent is dead and Rebecca is missing.
Son Jour à elle: Chiara, twelve years old, receives her first communion. Her mother is decided to make the moment eternal with a photo but Chiara is not feeling good.

Screening of ECAL short films selected by Lionel Baier