Switzerlanders Similar Movies

The intimate journey of Caroline, a flamboyant grandmother, and Stéphane, her filmmaker grandson, exploring the development and transmission of gender identity.

Some people think of Switzerland as a heaven on earth, but what do the Swiss themselves imagine life after death will be like? To answer this question, documentary filmmaker Stéphane Goël spoke with large numbers of his compatriots – all of them in the twilight of their life – about how they picture the hereafter. The result is a series of remarkable, poignant and funny conversations in which the interviewees open up about their dreams, passions and fears.

What happens if you give magic mushrooms (psilocibine) to experienced Zen practitioners who have never used drugs? What does that teach us about the mystical experience of oneness with nature? Based on these questions, psychiatrist Franz Vollenweider and Zen master Vanja Palmers set up a legal science experiment in a monastery at the top of Mount Rigi in Switzerland. Exactly 50 years after the magic mushrooms were officially banned, a new story begins in what is now called the “psychedelic renaissance”. While in 2021 most studies with psychedelics mainly focus on their promising medical applications, Frans and Vanja are already going a step further. Can the combination of meditation and psilocibin help humanity get out of the mess we have created on ourselves and the planet with our neo-liberal society?

While his mother is fighting cancer, his sister announces that she is pregnant, and his father sets out to renovate the dining room, David Maye films. He films the intimacy of his family, the moments shared in the house that saw him grow up, between the vines of the Valais region, in the hollow of the mountains. The Sunday reunions, around his father’s cooking, the summer days in the flowering garden, together… He films, as if his camera could still hold back his family, keep it solid and close-knit, when everything is crumbling faced with the perspective of death.

Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in America.

At the far end of the Alaskan peninsula, for filmmaker Roman Droux a childhood dream comes true. He discovers together with the bear researcher David Bittner the universe of wild grizzlies. The two adventurists face bears at smelling-distance, experience the struggle for survival of a bear family and witness dramatic fighting scenes. Driven by a desire to explore the unknown the film tells a personal story of wilderness, framed in breathtaking pictures of unique creatures.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a Japanese farmer ekes out a solitary existence within the radiation red zone.

As the Internet finally arrives in tiny Bhutan, documentarian Thomas Balmes is there to witness its transformative impact on a young Buddhist monk whose initial trepidation gives way to profound engagement with the technology.

Pope Francis responds to questions from around the world, discussing topics including ecology, immigration, consumerism and social justice.