16/12/2024 - Thomas Haemmerli's Die Hinterlassenschaft des Bruno Stefanini will open this year’s event, which is set to foreground the new generation of filmmakers and the theme of legacy

The Solothurn Film Festival will celebrate its 60th edition in 2025 (running 22 - 29 January), paying tribute to current film creation in all its genres and formats. The younger generation of filmmakers will also be placed centre stage, by way of works both powerful and personal. The festival has selected 91 feature films and 71 shorts for this year’s edition, 21 of which are taking part in the Solothurn’s three competitions.

As mentioned in the press release, "it’s interesting to see a high number of works exploring subjects around legacy and succession" this year. It’s a theme which is fast becoming the leitmotiv of the Panorama section, notably thanks to Thomas Haemmerli’s opening movie Die Hinterlassenschaft des Bruno Stefanini, which looks back on the life of a property entrepreneur and die-hard collector. Other films also lean into this subject-matter: Highly Explosive by Kerstin Polte reflects on what the Second World War has left in its wake, and We, the Inheritors by Simon Baumann, which was previously presented in Locarno’s Critics’ Week, takes an unflinching approach to tackling succession within a family.

For its part, the Prix de Soleure section will offer up four documentaries, one of which also takes an interest in matters of legacy, though this time vis-a-vis the war: Il ragazzo della Drina by Zijad Ibrahimovic examines how new generations live with the trauma caused by armed conflict. There’s also Dom by Svetlana Rodina and Laurent Stoop, which follows Russian rebels who resist using digital media, Under Mango Trees by Damaris Lüthi, homing in on women experiencing the upheaval of civil war in Sri Lanka, and Immortals [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Maja Tschumi, which follows two young people at the height of the October Revolution in Bagdad. The fiction films jostling in the showcase are Bagger Drama [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Piet Baumgartner
film profile] by Piet Baumgartner, which was awarded the New Directors Prize in San Sebastián and which focuses on construction machinery and a family who struggle to talk about their feelings when faced with a tragedy, and Hôtel Silence [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Canadian-Swiss director Léa Pool, which sees a man finding joie de vivre in a country ravaged by war.

In the Audience Award line-up, meanwhile, seven feature films have been selected alongside the afore-mentioned Die Hinterlassenschaft des Bruno Stefanini. These include Behind The Glass by Olga Dinnikova, which follows a rebellious girl who finds refuge in Switzerland; Iceman [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Corina Gamma, focusing on Swiss explorer Konrad Steffen who disappeared without a trace in Greenland; Naima by Anna Thommen, painting the portrait of a Venezuelan woman who begins her nursing training in Switzerland; Road’s End in Taiwan [+see also:
film review
interview: Maria Nicollier
film profile] by Maria Nicollier, focusing on a young man who decides to travel to Taiwan on inheritance matters but who discovers his family in the process, and Quir [+see also:
film review
interview: Nicola Bellucci
film profile] by Nicola Bellucci, which tells a courageous love story about a couple who are part of the LGBTQI+ scene in Palermo.

Last but not least, in the Visioni section, dedicated to first and second works, seven films will take centre stage, including Milk Teeth [+see also:
film review
interview: Mona Cathleen Otterbach
interview: Sophia Bösch
film profile] by Sophia Bösch, which is a feminist ode exploring different marginalised realities which society is afraid of confronting; Pictures in Mind [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eleonora Camizzi
film profile] by Eleonora Camizzi, which questions the boundaries between mental illness and what society defines as "normality"; Tamina – Will There Ever Be What Used to Be? by Beat Oswald, Lena Hatebur and Samuel Weniger, which uses the wolf metaphor to reflect upon mankind’s place in an ecosystem which they believe they dominate; Freight by Max Carlo Kohal, telling the story of a young man who dreams of becoming the captain of a container ship; Osteria all'undici by Filippo Demarchi, which also tackles taboos relating to mental illness by way of his own personal experience; and, finally, the surrealist work Norma Dorma [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Lorenz Suter, which is a cinematographic anomaly hovering between dream and real-life.

(Translated from French)