By Tamar Noort. “Swiss films always are Swiss first and films later.” “Swiss cinema is a horror film.” “Swiss cinema is trying to talk its problems to death.” The Swiss have a penchant for delivering the most crushing verdicts on the Helvetic cinema themselves. The country in the alps seems to enjoy lamenting on the state of their own film industry – and indeed: the conditions for film production are all but perfect in Switzerland. In this country with roughly as many inhabitants as New York there are four different official languages – and the national film funds don’t have enough money to finance the Swiss-German speaking features as well as the Italian-speaking, the French-speaking and the Romansh-speaking features all at the same time. So you can’t please all of the Swiss at once – but paradoxically the main criterion for film financing is still success with the audience. The “success cinema” programme rewards specifically those movies that are accepted by large audiences. If a film had a successful run, the people involved get financing for their next projects. This programme was founded by Nicolas Bideau, the head of the film section in the National Ministry of Culture. He formulated a policy best outlined by the slogan „Qualité – Popularité“, so a good film in his opinion is most of all a successful film. Once a director has proven that he can attract the masses of moviegoers, as Michael Steiner recently did with rascalls on the road and Grounding, the financing for his next feature seems like a sure thing. Which for example lead to a situation, where the shooting of Steiner’s mountain horror movie SENNENTUNTSCHI had already started, even before the financing was definite – until debts in the millions prevented the finishing of the film.

Last year 76 Swiss films made it into the local cinemas, but in competition with American movies and films from other European nations they only amounted to 4,02% of the market share. When you consider that the average Swiss citizen visits the cinema all of two times a year you can imagine how much of the local films find their way to the Swiss audience. This may also have to do with the fact that there are no stars, which are known beyond the Swiss borders and would therefore represent their nation. Switzerland has produced many talents – and driven most of them away. Bruno Ganz, Maximilian Schell and Liselotte Pulver are household names, but all of them found their most important roles abroad. They never became representatives of the Swiss cinema, because local production could hardly offer them anything interesting. Dani Levy, who the Germans prefer to see as one of their own, is originally from Basel. Even Jean-Luc Godard grew up in Switzerland and started his directing career there – but he produced his great films in Paris. The festivals of Locarno and Zurich give Switzerland an international reputation – but as hosts rather than filmmakers. There is no festival section showcasing Swiss cinema. Locarno only shows restored copies of Swiss classics.

The only exhibition of current Swiss cinema is the Solothurn Film Festival, which was established 1966 and has a clear focus on Swiss productions. This year the Swiss Film Award was given out for the first time – in order to support the Swiss film industry and its creative potential. It was a bit of limelight, which seems exactly what the doctor ordered for the Swiss cinema.

Links

• DEATH BY SCRABBLE (Barbara Seiler. CH 2008)
• MAID TO OUST (Julien Rouyet. CH 2008)
• THE STAFF ROOM (CH 2009. Tareq Daoud)