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SOLOTHURN 2020

Anita Hugi's first Solothurn Film Festival unveils its programme

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- On 22 January, the 55th edition of the festival will open with the screening of Micha Lewinsky’s long-awaited new film One-Way to Moscow

Anita Hugi's first Solothurn Film Festival unveils its programme
One-Way to Moscow by Micha Lewinsky

The Swiss Panorama section of the Solothurn Film Festival’s 2020 edition (22-29 January) will play host to 22 fiction feature films and documentaries hailing from all corners of the Swiss territory. In total, this highly anticipated edition, now helmed by new festival director Anita Hugi, will offer up no less than 178 works. And this year, too, first films by young directors will come out in force, primed and ready to take on the demanding audience of the festival.

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In terms of the jury for the prestigious Prix de Soleure, we’ll see many known names gracing its ranks: director Ursula Meier (Sister [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kacey Mottet Klein
interview: Ursula Meier
film profile
]
), young multimedia artist Cemile Sahin (Taxi) and Swiss diplomat and ambassador to the United Nations Mirko Manzoni. Among the twelve films selected for the Prix de Soleure, we find the latest efforts by young directors of international acclaim such as Basil Da Cunha (O fim do mundo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Basil Da Cunha
film profile
]
), Karim Sayad (My English Cousin [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Karim Sayad
film profile
]
), Boutheyna Bouslama (Looking For The Man With The Camera), Mischa Hedinger (African Mirror [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) and Jonas Schaffter (Arada [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), as well as works by confirmed artists, now regular attendees at the Solothurn gathering; namely Sabine Boss (Open Season [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), Stephane Goël (Citoyen Nobel [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), Jacqueline Zünd (Where We Belong [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), Anna Thommen and Lorenz Nufer (Volunteer [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), Edgar Hagen (Who Are We?), Daniel Howald (Who’s Afraid of Alice Miller? [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) and Esen Isik (Al-Shafaq – When Heaven Divides [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
). The selected films are all united by a common desire to speak of difficulties linked to war, the loss of one’s own roots and the need to find a family outside of one’s own country.

Twelve films (spanning works of fiction as well as documentaries) are also in the running for the Audience Award: One-Way to Moscow by Micha Lewinsky (who also directed A Decent Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) and first films by Natascha Beller (Vagenda Stories) and Yu Hao (Plötzlich Heimweh), not to mention works by Peter Guyer and Thomas Burkhalter (Contradict), Blaise Harrison (Particles [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Blaise Harrison
film profile
]
), Niklaus Hilber (Paradise War: The Story of Bruno Manser [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Niklaus Hilber
film profile
]
), Delphine Lehericey (Beyond the Horizon [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Delphine Lehericey
film profile
]
), François-Christophe Marzal (Tambour battant), Callisto Mc Nulty (Delphine and Carole [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Callisto Mc Nulty
film profile
]
), Klaudia Reynicke (Love Me Tender [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), Stéphane Riethauser (Madame [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) and Samir (Baghdad in My Shadow [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
).

The Swiss Panorama section of this latest edition will include a total of 178 films, of which 81 are feature films. It’s also worth mentioning that, for the first time, there will be an equal number of films shot by female and male directors showcased in the short films category. And given the long tradition of documentary-making in Switzerland, the strong presence of this genre in the 2020 edition (51 feature-length documentaries) comes as no great surprise. Amongst these non-fiction works, we find Maria Müller’s long-awaited title Under the Same Roof, which follows the cohabitation of a Swiss family with a family of Syrian refugees. In Fiancées [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, meanwhile, Julia Bünter tackles the delicate subject of marriage in Egypt. Likewise worth a mention among the first films screening in this category is Buganda Royal Music Revival by Jules Louis Koechlin and Basile Koechlin. Other premieres include the documentary Amazonian Cosmos by Daniel Schweizer, Paths of Life by Thomas Lüchinger, Paul Nizon-Der Nagel in Kopf by Christoph Kühn and Sekuritas by Carmen Stadler.

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(Translated from Italian)

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