FESTIVALS Switzerland / Canada
The Montreal International Documentary Festival stocks up on Swiss films
- Four Swiss productions and co-productions will be showcased at this year’s Montreal International Documentary Festival
With two titles in competition, a Special Screening and a closing film, the Swiss film industry will enjoy a significant presence at this year’s Montreal International Documentary Festival.
The Shelter [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fernand Melgar
film profile] by Fernand Melgar and El tiempo nublado [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Arami Ullón
film profile] by Switzerland-based Paraguayan director Arami Ullón will both be duking it out for the Grand Prix in the International Competition. Having already been presented and won awards at prestigious festivals such as Locarno, Visions du Réel in Nyon (El tiempo nublado) and DOK Leipzig (The Shelter), the two titles will be celebrating their North American premieres at the gathering in Montreal.
On the other hand, Spartiates, by Montreal-based Genevan director Nicolas Wadimoff, will be screened as a world premiere and as the festival’s closing film; the movie will be presented in conjunction with Swiss Films. Spartiates follows the misadventures of Yvan Sorel, a young martial-arts expert who runs his coeducational school on the outskirts of Marseille with an iron fist. Wadimoff brings us face to face with a peculiar character: despite his utterly unique teaching methods that could be classed as harsh, to say the very least, deep down he is hiding a tender sensitivity.
Lastly, Iranian [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Franco-Iranian director Mehran Tamadon, a co-production between France, Switzerland and Iran, will be featured among the Special Screenings. With Iranian, which already won the Grand Prix at Cinéma du Réel, Tamadon leads the viewer on an extraordinary adventure with utopian undercurrents, presenting an unexpected and liberating contrast between atheism and radical Islamism. The result is a never-ending debate that turns into a contest of pure rhetoric. A solid film that is disconcertingly topical.
(Translated from Italian)
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