Latest news with #ChristianFrei
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Co-Production Boost and Sturdy Funding System Fuel a Healthy Crop of Swiss Films at Visions du Réel
Those looking for homegrown talent and stories at the largest documentary film festival in Switzerland, Visions du Réel, will be spoiled for choice in 2025. This year's edition, which runs April 4-13, features a whopping 31 Swiss productions or co-productions, including the festival's opening film, Christian Frei's 'Blame.' Veteran Frei, the first-ever Swiss filmmaker to be nominated for an Oscar back in 2002 for 'War Photography,' stands alongside a crop of new talent in feature debuts such as Agostina Di Luciano and Leon Schwitter's 'The World Upside Down.' On the healthy crop of Swiss productions and co-productions this year, Charlotte Ducos, documentary and marketing strategies consultant at the country's national agency Swiss Films, says it is 'incredibly important to have Swiss films across the program and to have the opening film of the festival not only be Swiss but also a very expected title by a renowned filmmaker.' Ducos also emphasizes how 43% of Swiss films are currently co-productions, a testament to the importance of collaborating with their European neighbors such as Italy, Germany and Austria. Last year, Switzerland was the Country in Focus at Cannes's Marché du Film, another possible booster. More from Variety Diana Taurasi Docuseries Set at Amazon Prime Video Following WNBA Star and Olympic Gold Medalist's Life and Career (EXCLUSIVE) Sundance Award-Winning Documentary 'Zodiac Killer Project' Acquired by Music Box (EXCLUSIVE) COVID Conspiracies, RFK Jr. Discussed by Christian Frei as 'Blame' Opens Visions du Réel: 'In a World Where Nothing Is True, Everything Becomes Possible' Frei praised the support available to filmmakers in his home country, saying that he is 'deeply grateful for the subsidy system we established in Switzerland.' It was thanks to that that the director raised enough to spend the time needed on such an ambitious project as his denouncement of COVID-19 misinformation. 'I was able to do so without having to speculate on box office or commercial interest,' he highlights. Financing-wise, Switzerland offers various sources of funding at national and regional levels and from the private sector. The main avenue is the Film Investment Refund Switzerland (PICS), which primarily focuses on Swiss-international co-productions and is administered by the Federal Office of Culture. PICS refunds between 20-40% of eligible film production expenses if a project shoots for a minimum of five days in the country. With topics that range from AI's relationship with human creativity to the woes and joys of modern fatherhood, the Swiss films at this year's Visions du Réel look into the world of yesterday, today and tomorrow through classic journalistic investigations, hybrid docu-fiction, and first-person narratives to showcase the best of national talent. With such a wealth of titles, Variety has selected a handful of films to look out for, which you can find below: 'Blame,' dir. Christian Frei Frei, who made history as the first Oscar-nominated Swiss filmmaker with his searing investigation of war photography in the eponymous 2002 doc, returns to Visions du Réel with just as controversial of a proposition: a deep dive into the wave of misinformation that turned the scientists fighting the spread of SARS and subsequent COVID-19 pandemic into social pariahs. The festival's opening film, 'Blame,' poses a vital investigation into the relationship between politics, science and the media. Rise and Shine handles world sales. 'The World Upside Down,' dir. Agostina Di Luciano and Leon Schwitter This Swiss-Argentinian co-production taps into magical realism, mysticism and popular folklore to blend documentary and fiction as it follows the inhabitants of a small village nestled in the Argentine countryside. It is there that Omar, a village elder and farmer, witnesses a strange light in the sky. Curious, he embarks on an inquisitive journey alongside his grandson, just as Roxane and Lily prepare a holiday home for a family in Buenos Aires, where they make a discovery that will open a path to new forms of knowledge. Indox Films handles festival sales. 'Wider Than the Sky,' dir. Valerio Jalongo Veteran Italian filmmaker Jalongo, whose work has played widely at festivals such as Venice and Rome and who has collaborated with the likes of Brendan Gleeson and Valeria Golino, returns to Visions du Réel with a film looking at how AI interacts with human emotion and creativity. 'Wider Than the Sky' parades scientific labs and artists' studios with those working close to the intersection of AI and neuroscience to pose the question: can AI positively shape the future of humanity? 'Colostrum,' dir. Sayaka Mizuno Mizuno's 2016 mid-length documentary 'Kawasaki Keirin' won the Prix du Jury at Visions du Réel for most innovative Swiss film of all competitive sections. She returns to the festival with 'Colostrum,' a look at the relationship between a farmer in the Swiss Alps and his seasonal volunteer, a thirty-something woman from the city who is passionate about animal welfare and ecofeminism. The film zooms into the characters' differences to find their commonalities, as well as pay homage to the rhythms of traditional farming. Stranger Films Sales handles world sales. 'Dads,' dir. David Maye After screening his feature debut 'Les Grandes Traversées' at Visions du Réel in 2017, Maye is back at the festival with a close look at modern fatherhood. The film follows four fathers or fathers-to-be as they talk through expectations, fears and taboos around fatherhood, such as questions about abandonment, raising daughters, and perpetuating harmful masculine stereotypes. 'Sons of Icarus,' dir. Daniel Kemény On his third feature documentary, Kermény goes personal by sharing the story of his family: the director is European, and his brother is Cuban, with their father having left West Germany in the 1970s to escape the ghosts of fascism and finally settling in Cuba years later. In 'Sons of Icarus,' the filmmaker sets off to North America in search of his family, eventually struggling to connect with his reserved father. Through the medium of film, Kermény finds a space to mend old wounds and tell a visual story where words would fail. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Disney+ in April 2025 The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
COVID Conspiracies, RFK Jr. Discussed by Christian Frei as ‘Blame' Opens Visions du Réel: ‘In a World Where Nothing Is True, Everything Becomes Possible'
While keeping up with news reports in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Oscar-nominated Swiss director Christian Frei began to experience a feeling that 'those who warned us would eventually be the ones who are blamed.' This sentiment, which he calls an 'epiphany,' is at the heart of 'Blame,' which opens Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel on Friday. 'Blame' follows three scientists who researched the origin of the SARS epidemic that first broke out in China in 2003, Linfa Wang, Zhengli Shi and Peter Daszak. The latter is the former president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that supported various programs on global health and pandemic prevention, and, in January of this year, was entirely defunded and debarred by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services following an eight-month investigation on its 'failure to adequately monitor the activities of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).' More from Variety Firelight Media Appoints Loira Limbal as President and CEO (EXCLUSIVE) 'Gone Girls' Director Liz Garbus on Returning to the Long Island Murders and Focusing on Victims Instead of 'Damaged' Serial Killers Documentary 'Number One on the Call Sheet,' About the History of Black Hollywood, Aims to be a 'Blueprint for Generations to Come' Frei's film begins with the first SARS outbreak in 2003, chronicling how the trio of scientists would come to spend the next two decades trying to stop subsequent pandemics just to be then discredited when disinformation campaigns and fake news on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread. On the sensitivity of the subject of 'Blame,' Frei tells Variety he became 'much more comfortable' once he decided to approach it as a 'classic journalistic story.' 'I also wanted it to be told through the empathetic lens of documentary,' he adds. 'I wanted to give the subjects room so their voices would be heard but also resist simplification, which is not the easiest from a commercial point of view.' The director recognizes that resisting simplification often dampens a film's commercial chances but emphasizes he has a 'huge advantage' of not only working in a country with a healthy film funding system that allows for a director to retain creative control of their film but also being a producer, writer, and editor. 'I am 100% in control of all my features and am very grateful I'm able to do that.' On being attracted to controversial subjects such as the ethics of war photography as in his Oscar-nominated 2001 film 'War Photography' or space tourism in 2009's 'Space Tourists,' Frei says these are 'the tectonics of humanity.' 'This is where I will always go. I grew up in a middle-class family and never had any reason to embark from war zones to space, but I am drawn to these stories. What I'm proud of is that my films are getting old in a nice way. They are still timely and valid after 30 years.' When asked if 'Blame' will also retain its timeliness, the director says he believes so as the film is not only about the COVID-19 pandemic but about 'how we are all seduced by screaming narratives.' 'The more established media is becoming indistinguishable from the click-baiting internet,' he continues. 'I am trying as much as possible to tell a story that might surprise people because what they encounter are real people, not sinister guys plotting in their labs. We often don't understand what they are doing, that's true, but they are still human beings. Do they make mistakes? I'm not saying they never do, but still, we should listen to them.' 'Blame' ends with President Trump's recent appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy Jr., who authored 'Wuhan Cover-Up: How U.S. Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19,' famously spread conspiracy theories on the pandemic, including a theory that the COVID-19 virus was engineered in Wuhan and spared certain ethnic minorities. 'I was not happy at all that he was finally confirmed but was also not very surprised,' says Frei of RFK Jr.'s appointment. 'A majority in Trump's cabinet understood the dynamic that [former White House chief strategist] Steve Bannon established: uncertainty is not our enemy; it is our friend. This is an opportunity for them. I'm not saying COVID is the only reason, but could Trump have returned to the White House without it? I doubt it.' The director is also quick to point out how this mindset is not exclusive to the U.S. but is also widely spreading in Europe and across the world. 'Far-right parties in Europe are getting stronger and stronger. Is democracy in bad shape? I sometimes feel so, and I feel we need to find a way back to healthily disagreeing. This film does not offer a truth. What I am saying is: let's try to find our way back to evidence-based worldviews and debates because, in a world where nothing is true anymore, everything becomes possible.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Disney+ in April 2025 The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins
