DOUGLAS SIRK - HOPE AS IN DESPAIR

by Roman Hüben

Documentary, 76’, 2022

An investigative portrait of the master of cinematic melodrama, Douglas Sirk. His life was the ultimate melodrama, from which all his films were inspired. Through the testimonies of those closest to him and the unpublished accounts in his wife's diary, we get closer to this man surrounded by mystery. We discover his world and his story, marked by hope and disillusionment, by death and, of course, by love.

COME ACQUA E PIETRE

by Stefano Etter and Giovanni Greggio

Documentary, 26’, 2020

The Ponte dei Salti is a thin strip of stone thrown from one side of the Verzasca Valley to the other. Walking across its two arches overlooking the river below almost makes one dizzy. Destroyed and then rebuilt again, the bridge is now the symbol of the valley, its history, its people and is one of the most enchanting places in Italian-speaking Switzerland.

In recent years it has become a tourist attraction that welcomes people from all over the world. Yet, despite this wave of modernity, the bridge seems to remind us of a distant and very different time. In the surrounding area there are small stone villages, bell towers, winding roads, genuine open-air museums. The men and women of the valley devote themselves to spinning, wood crafting or rock carving. Higher up, herdsmen continue millenary traditions of grazing, breeding and dairy production.

The documentary tells the stories of these characters, a portrait of lives tied to the Ponte dei Salti.

LAWRENCE CARROLL, FINDING A PLACE

by Simona Ostinelli

Documentary, 52’, 2018

Lawrence Carroll, the great exponent of monochrome, is among the major names in contemporary art today. For more than thirty years, with profound coherence and dedication, he has been conducting research into the language of painting. The film provides a moving view of the artist’s journey from New York, where his adventure began, to Bolsena, in Lazio, where he lives. It also accompanies him as he prepares for a retrospective at the Museo Vincenzo Vela in Ligornetto.

LE VOYAGE DE LAURA

by Matteo Born

Documentary, 54’, 2018

A silver platter: the only thing she kept from her humanitarian project. After four long years in denial, Laura wishes to regain control over her life. Today, the young woman prepares for a decisive journey: she wants to bring the platter back where it came from. Laura is about to revisit the places where she was raped, in the middle of a north African desert.

ALBERTO NESSI: FIORI D’OMBRA

by Elvira Dones

Documentary, 55’, 2018

Alberto Nessi is one of Switzerland's most brilliant writers. Deeply rooted in Ticino - to which he has dedicated his very personal voice, local and universal at the same time - Nessi knows how to describe the human experience reflected in a blade of grass, in a blossoming flower, in the face of a refugee on a train, leading us almost by the hand through the most humble and minute stories that however make great History.

THE OTHER HALF OF THE SKY

by Patrik Soergel

Documentary, 80’, 2016

The film explores the huge transformation taking place in China today, from the perspectives of four of the country's most powerful businesswomen. They experienced the austerity of China's Cultural Revolution, followed by the subsequent economic boom. Though growing up in a patriarchal society, they have risen from nothing and have become symbols of change, representing a forceful break with the past. Their stories reflect today's China: a country which is impatient to turn away from its rural past and become an industrialized, ultramodern economy.

THE LIVES OF MECCA

by Stefano Etter

Documentary, 53’, 2016

Each of us fights a hard battle every day. Handballers sublimate their personal dramas at the Mecca of Coney Island. As in any discipline, here, too, there are “living legends”: Tom Vitale, Patrick Adams and “Crazy” Johnny are three of them. The shining example of redemption and liberation from lives that seemed cursed from the start. And men who unknowingly reopened a wound in the director's personal life, making him doubt certain difficult stances he had taken. This is the story of the Mecca's players, of their remedy for the ills of daily life, through the sport and through their community.