Format: Documentary-fiction hybrid
Direction: Amirhossein Samimi
Screenplay: Amirhossein Samimi
The film follows a group of young Iranian theatre makers who have formed an independent ensemble and regularly improvise together. Together, they embark on a ten-day trip to a town outside Tehran to reach new audiences. During this time, they live, rehearse and improvise together – until the boundaries between performance and reality become increasingly blurred.
Format: Documentary film / essay
Direction: Elias Bötticher / Simona Volpe
Screenplay: Elias Bötticher / Simona Volpe
Camera: Elias Bötticher
From Switzerland, one of the largest commodity trading centres in the world, we look to Sisimiut, where the mining school trains young Greenlanders to become mining technicians. It is a promise of economic independence while global powers vie for rare earths under the melting ice. A questioning and observing research work about geopolitical tentacles prodding the ice.
Format: feature film
Direction: Jelena Pavlović
Screenplay: Jelena Pavlović
Looking for: Additional funding, dramaturgical advice, production company
When they retire, Slavica (64) and Željko (66) return to their Serbian home village after more than thirty years. For him, returning is a long-awaited dream and the hope of escaping the threat of poverty in old age in Switzerland. For Slavica, it means one thing above all: another farewell to her family and a life that has long since become her home. Out of loyalty and to keep an old promise, she leaves Switzerland for good and moves with Željko into their newly built house on the Serbian outskirts. But the new beginning is not what they had hoped for. While Željko clings to his romantic idea of returning home, Slavica begins to have increasing doubts about their repatriation.
Format: Feature film
Direction: Dorentina Imeri
Screenplay: Dorentina Imeri
In a remote Albanian river valley, Oda produces fog to feed her family. As winter approaches, their erstwhile autonomy increasingly falls into the hands of others.
Format: Feature film
Director: Francesco Diaz
Screenplay: Francesco Diaz
Looking for: a Swiss production company
In a building with thin walls, eleven-year-old Matilde protects herself from domestic violence by turning it into ghosts. With Giovanni, her neighbour and best friend, she pursues one until she discovers that the monster they thought was imaginary has the face of the man who should love her. A film for young audiences and adults that looks at feminicide through the eyes of two children.
Format: hybrid animation-documentary feature film
Director: Julie-Yara Atz
Screenplay: Julie-Yara Atz & co-writer tbd
Production company: Imajack
Looking for: co-writer (either with experience of futurism or documentary writing)
After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, a daughter accompanies her mother on a surreal journey back to Homs. The film follows three generations of Syrian women at a unique historical moment: the time when the old has ended and the new has not yet begun. A feature-length documentary-animation hybrid, the film explores what’s possible through laughter, mythology and dreams.
Format: series, 6×45 minutes
Director: Pauline Jeanbourquin
Screenplay: Pauline Jeanbourquin
Production company: tbd
Looking for: producer
Summer 2026: Louise, 25, returns to her native Jura for an internship with the local newspaper. Old archives reveal the unsolved disappearance of a teenage girl 50 years earlier. Louise launches an investigation. The village seems to hold a secret, with each inhabitant holding a piece of the puzzle. During the broadcast, viewers can investigate in real time via Louise’s social networks.
Format: documentary
Direction: Flavio Araujo
Screenplay: Flavio Araujo
Looking for: Production company, additional funding
‘Habitat’ is a documentary essay about new alliances in the struggle for living space. While an architect investigates whether cohabitation with a bat could prevent the demolition of his flat, the members of a Zurich house share are hoping that old trees will be their last allies against its displacement. Species conservation and urban development interweave to create a story of connection and alliance.
Format: Documentary
Direction: Sandra Gysi
Screenplay: Sandra Gysi
Production company: donkeyshot filmproduction GmbH
Six women, the rhythm of an aerobics class and the megacity of Cairo: from the perspective of a participant observer, ‘Yalla, ya Sittat!’ creates a multi-layered portrait of ageing and the courage to be self-determined – from the aerobics room behind the high walls of Africa’s most traditional sports club to the contrasting lives of the protagonists.
Format: cinema documentary
Director: Adrian Winkler
Screenplay: Adrian Winkler
In June 1979, a demonstration in Bern marked a historic turning point: for the first time, people with disabilities did not appear as petitioners but as responsible citizens who loudly demanded their right to participation. The documentary film ‘Aufstand der Krüppel’ (AT) tells the story of the Swiss disability movement and builds a bridge to the current inclusion initiative.