Solothurn film festival opens

At the opening of the 2012 Solothurn film festival on Thursday, this year’s Swiss president, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, praised the quality of Swiss cinema.

She said it deserved the quality label “Swissness”.

For her part, the new director of the festival, Seraina Rohrer, compared filmmaking with winemaking.

“Filmmakers also depend on a good climate, financially and politically,” she said. She said she hoped the new regulations on the allocation of public money would create a good basis for future film production.

In her speech, Widmer-Schlumpf admitted that finding the way to allocate money to filmmakers in a fair and effective way was a “challenging” task.

The first film to be shown at the festival was Xavier Koller’s “Eine wen iig, dr Dällebach Kari” (Someone like me – Dällebach Kari), the tragic story of a well-known Bernese character from the first part of the 20th century.

The festival lasts until January 26. Last year it attracted 55,000 visitors.