24/01/2024 - Luka Popadić’s debut feature film follows three Swiss officers of Serbian, Sri Lankan and Tunisian origin wrestling with a dual identity which makes them unique

Presented in a world premiere at the Solothurn Film Festival, where the movie currently in the running for the Audience Award, My Swiss Army, by the Swiss director of Serbian descent Luka Popadić, reflects on the concept of multiculturalism by way of a highly identifiable institution: the army. As the son of immigrants himself - who has previously made his name with short films selected at numerous international festivals - the director uses his own personal experience as a “Serbian director and Swiss officer”, to borrow his words, to try to understand what drives so many bi-national citizens to enlist. Why are they so attracted to the super-organised world of the army, as opposed to the vast majority of Swiss young people. What if what’s seen as an obligation by so many was actually considered to be a privilege, an opportunity to take revenge on a society which doesn’t always accept realities which veer away from the norm? With utmost sensitivity and a healthy dose of humour, the director tries to answer these questions and many more.

Swiss officers Saâd, Thuruban and Andrija – who are respectively Tunisian, Sri Lankan and Serbian - have maintained strong links with their family origins, but this hasn’t stopped them from throwing themselves into their military careers. Running counter to an increasingly powerful antimilitary movement, the film’s three protagonists have embraced a world which couldn’t be more Swiss if it tried, composed of fanatical order and total respect for the rules. In order to understand their motivations, Luka Popadić listens empathically as they speak, he films their daily lives, foregrounding the richness of a multiculturalism which challenges all prejudices over so-called integration and what the word “homeland” really means. As Thuruban enthuses with total spontaneity and sincerity: “they don’t come more Swiss than me!”.

Educated, sensitive and always ready to talk (a far cry from the usual muscleman-soldier stereotype), Saâd, Thuruban and Andrija are able to laugh at themselves and at the stereotypes which they’re too often victims of. Sadly accustomed to having to assert their right to call themselves Swiss citizens, the three protagonists have unexpectedly found a welcoming family in the army, as if by wearing the uniform they are, at last, equal to everyone else. Alongside this seeming acceptation, however, a number of contradictions emerge in their many conversations with the director, such as the low number of high-level officials of foreign origin. Obviously military service allows its participants to meet people of different social, cultural and religious origins but - as tends to happen in civil society too - the high spheres of power remain firmly confined to an elite who certainly aren’t ready to welcome ”exoticism”, as Thuruban puts very eloquently and not without irony.

Thanks to the often difficult and uncomfortable questions asked by the director, such as which side they’d take if Switzerland ever entered into war with their birth-country, the film succeeds in shining a light on the complications involved in reconciling different identities cohabiting in the same person and making them unique. Skilfully interweaving his own story with that of his protagonists, Luka Popadić treats us to a sincere and refreshing film and a veritable commedia of real life.

My Swiss Army is produced by Beauvoir Films, SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen and RTS Radio Télévision Suisse.

(Translated from Italian)