The showcase presents works from Stéphanie Argerich, Flurin Giger, Ursula Meier, Kaveh Bakhtiari, Valentin Merz, Laura Israel and Alberto Fasulo Both well-established and up-and-coming Swiss filmmakers are taking part in the Venice Film Festival’s Production Bridge industry strand, where Switzerland will be one of the country’s in focus at the Gap-Financing Market. Seven Swiss projects and co-productions are among the total of 38 fiction and documentary works featured in the Venice Production Bridge’s Gap-Financing Market lineup, selected from a record-breaking 370-plus submissions. Spanning a wide range of subject matter and genre, the projects, in various stages of development, delve into the human toll of natural cataclysm, the forced criminality of migration, cross-cultural and cross-class romance, murder mystery, apocalyptic sci-fi and the artistic process.
Among them are works by Flurin Giger, who premiered his 2016 short “Ruah” in Venice and 2018’s “Schächer” in Cannes; award-winning filmmaker Stéphanie Argerich with her first narrative feature; Valentin Merz, who picked up a first feature prize in Locarno in 2022 for “De noche los gatos son pardos”; Ursula Meier, whose credits include the 2012 and 2022 Berlin-premiering, prize-winning works “Sister” and “The Line“; and Kaveh Bakhtiari, who follows up his acclaimed 2013 Cannes doc “Stop-Over” with his scripted feature debut. Giger arrives with “A Year Without Summer,” produced by Geneva-based Beauvoir Films and Heimatfilm in Cologne. Set in 1816, it follows a peasant family in Europe whose existence is threatened when the skies suddenly darken and snow falls in the midst of summer.
Unbeknownst to them, they are experiencing the effects of a catastrophic volcanic eruption in Indonesia. He’s one of the most exciting up-and-coming directors we know, and honestly his debut feature fits perfectly into Beauvoir’s line-up as we nourish the same desire for cinema.” The project stands apart through the extraordinary subject itself, Tollu-Polonowski adds. In 1816, the world went dark after the eruption of volcano Tambora; it transformed the climate and reshaped lives across continents.
It’s an event that has inspired artists long before us. It was during this year that brought so much death and misery that painters like Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner created some of their most celebrated works, skies with these strange, powerful colors, a rare kind of splendor.
What they were painting was actually real, it was the atmospheric aftermath of the eruption.” Currently being cast with a mix of professional and non-professional actors, the film will shoot in Rhaeto-Romanic, spoken in parts of southeastern Switzerland and northeastern Italy. Beyond the historical setting, the story also offers frightening parallels to the present day, Tollu-Polonowski notes: “A world thrown off balance by something invisible, people trying to make sense of a changed climate. It doesn’t feel like a period piece.” After winning acclaim for her 2012 documentary “Bloody Daughter,” about her parents, renowned pianists Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich, Argerich returns with narrative feature “Kyushu Moon,” produced by Geneva-based Intermezzo Films and Les Films du Bélier in Paris.
The film centers on Sarah (played by Alba Rohrwacher), a recently divorced journalist who travels to Japan for a report on a retreat for men with relationship difficulties. There she meets Moroto (Ryo Kase), a 42-year-old virgin man. Despite not speaking each other’s language, unexpected feelings arise.
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