Parallel Sections

Genre Cinema

The programme section on Genre cinema is devoted each year to a specific film genre and explores the ways that it is adapted all over the world. In 2012, the starting gun will usher in the Western – with Soviet, South African, Brazilian, Mexican or Indian origins.

The Western – the ultimate genre! One that made the past what it was, but which also plays a superb role in the present. Pronounced defunct for at least 40 years, the Western repeatedly rises from its ashes. After more than a century of existence, it has distanced itself from the conventions that ensured its place in the annals of film history and today it is more alive than ever. The Western is a shared value throughout the world of cinema, as the 15 films selected by Jean-Philippe Bernard (film journalist and critic) in Once Upon a Time in the South so magnificently remind us! Artists everywhere adapt it to their own culture and their own sociological, ideological, or political preoccupations.

Decryption

Each year, this interdisciplinary programme section takes an explosive social theme as the subject of an in-depth analysis.

In 2012, the focus is on the Image of Islam in the Occident, with a series of films produced in Europe that illustrate this issue. For a long time, the relationship between East and West has been marked by mistrust and stereotyping. Numerous initiatives seek a better understanding and attempt to undermine the powerful polarisation that exists. A recurring theme in contemporary film is the difficulty of living between two cultures. How does a migrant from the East who settles in Europe manage to achieve a synthesis between their roots and the demands of modern life?

Diaspora

What films do members of an exiled community like to watch to remember their homeland? 

Keen to have a well known Swiss celebrity for the inauguration of this section, the FIFF has invited Patrick Chappatte, political cartoonist for Le Temps, NZZ am Sonntag and the International Herald Tribune. Through six films, this programme presents a flashback on the Lebanon, his mother’s country, in which he has never lived.

Hommage à...

The FIFF refocuses its interest on the crossroads that exist today between approaches to film-making around the world. To gain a better understanding of their nature, it is important to look back on those who helped to reveal the paths that have led us there.

To open the debate, the FIFF wanted to reconnect with Pierre-Alain Meier, a Swiss writer and producer from the Jura, who has played a significant role in the Festival’s past. The programme comprises several significant works drawn from the filmography of Pierre-Alain Meier, and from cinema in general: powerful films that are intellectually engaged in this issue and carry the deeply rooted impression of their country of origin.

Terra Incognita

There are still nations whose film production has not been discovered by mass distribution, and the FIFF has established a platform to explore these unknown realms of cinematography. This year the honour goes to Bangladesh.

It is an undisputable fact: the cinema of this country in the delta of the Gange presents films that reveal an unsuspected wealth of culture that deserves to be known. After a phase of strong growth in the 1970s, the Bangladeshi film industry saw new talent emerge in the 1980s, with Tareque Masud leading a new generation of film directors. Nevertheless, today the country still lacks proper production infrastructures, film schools, and especially cinemas. The programme created by Barbara Lorey de Lacharrière (film journalist and critic) provides several perspectives of the country through memorable productions over recent years: films, romantic or political, that draw their inspiration from the country’s rural tradition.

Passeport Suisse

The Swiss have always shown a penchant for going abroad to record their observations in one way or another. Swiss film-makers travel to the farthest corners of the world to make films – for the most part documentaries.

Two films are on the agenda for the 2012 programme. First, an exceptional documentary that was recently restored by the Swiss Cinémathèque: China ohne Maske (China unmasked); 20,000 km through China. In 1936, Hans Vogel, a doctor, took part in a cinematographic expedition to China and Mongolia. He was one of the first to film these countries, using a small 16 mm camera. 

Of more recent vintage, the latest film by Stefan Schwietert, Balkan Melodie (Balkan melody), recounts the epic journeys of Catherine and Marcel Cellier, a couple from the Vaud who crossed the Iron Curtain fifty years ago to collect the musical heritage of Eastern Europe and reveal it to the West.

Sur la carte de...

Each year, a recognised film-maker draws his own map of the cinematographic world.

Approached by the FIFF for the 2012 programming, Georges Schwizgebel, the doyen of Swiss animation films, will share with us his favourite films from the four corners of the world. Discovering these films from so many different origins, the spectator will no doubt be struck by the broad range of expression that animation film offers. The programming highlights the theme of a crossroads of viewpoints by also presenting western films that talk about other regions of the world. The feature film, Sita Sings the Blues by American film-maker Nina Paley, or the programme “Short films on the South and East” demonstrate how an artist can be inspired by and also aspire to another culture.