Seven Swiss films to be shown at the Berlinale

The ten-day film festival in the German capital opens on February 15. Keystone / Jens Kalaene

In addition to the Swiss co-production Gloria!, shortlisted for the Golden Bear, six other Swiss films will be screened at the Berlinale in various categories, according to promotion agency Swiss Films. The ten-day festival opens on February 15.

For Gloria!, the young Italian actress and singer Margherita Vicario stepped behind the camera. Ticino actress Jasmin Mattei is also in the cast. Set in a boarding school for young girls in Venice at the end of the 18th century, the film tells the story of Teresa. The young woman defies those around her by developing a new kind of music.

Les Paradis de Diane (Paradises of Diane) by Carmen Jaquier and Jan Gasman from Geneva, screened at the opening of the Solothurn Film Days 2024, was selected in the Panorama category. Immediately after the birth of her first child, Diane abandons her partner and newborn baby in a Zurich hospital and disappears into a Spanish town.

+ Solothurn Film Prize won by ‘Die Anhörung’

Shikun, a Swiss-Israeli-French co-production, selected in the Berlinale Special category, is based on Eugène Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros. Franco-Swiss actress Irène Jacob stars in the film, which tells the story of the emergence of totalitarian thinking on the edge of the Beer-Sheva desert in Israel.

Berliners will also be able to see Reinas, a Swiss-Peruvian-Spanish co-production, in the Generation Kplus selection. The film follows the journey of a girl and her mother who, in 1992, plan to leave Peru for the United States. This third feature by director Klaudia Reynicke has just been screened at Sundance, the American independent film festival.

In Reas, former prisoners re-enact their life in a Buenos Aires prison in a musical. This Argentinian-Swiss-German co-production will be screened as part of Forum.

In a documentary entitled Techqua Ikachi. Land – Mein Leben (Techqua Ikachi. Land – My life), made in 1989, the elders of the village of Hotevilla in Arizona describe their non-violent resistance to the oppression of the American government. It will also be screened as part of Forum.

Finally, also in the same category, is the Swiss-Italian documentary Il cassetto segreto (The Secret Drawer). Director Costanza Quatriglio embarks on a journey to the house where she was born. While her journalist father’s house is being emptied, private and collective memories invade it and become the catalyst for a rebirth.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].