Movies: Maximage

Imagine waking up tomorrow and all music has disappeared. Just like that. What will remain when it is all gone: CDs, iPods, instruments?...

Above and Below is a rough and rhythmic roller coaster ride seating five survivors in their daily hustle through an apocalyptic world. A journey of challenges and beauty in uncomfortable places: Rick & Cindy, Godfather Lalo in the flood channels ...

First, there is the Appenzell countryside, and the melting snow that makes the streams overflow. Then the death of his mother, and the need to spend time with his father. On top of that, a global pandemic. Peter Mettler is a rare gem of a filmmaker. ...

Working at the limits of what can easily be expressed, filmmaker Peter Mettler takes on the elusive subject of time, and once again turns his camera to filming the unfilmable. From the particle accelerator in Switzerland, where scientists seek to pr...

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An ordinary day in the megacity of Istanbul: Ten-year-old Cemo sells paper tissues in the streets, Hayat is controlled by her husband and transsexual Ebru sells her body. All three have a secret love and they do everything that satisfies their longin...

After years of mass tourism in the Alps, a rethinking is slowly taking place. Whether researchers, artists or philosophers, many are trying to approach the essence of the mountains in new ways....

Filmmaker Peter Mettler embarks on a mission that takes him around the world. He is determined to record the diverse modes of transcendence that people in different cultures adopt in order to live life to the fullest. As he traverses civilization and...

"Al-Shafaq - When Heaven Divides" tells an uncompromising story about loss, guilt, atonement and redemption....

Felix is on the edge. He has got just one thing on his mind: Valerie - his wife, who has recently left him. He returns to the place of their final break-up. Valerie's ex-lover Thomas is also here, but not for sentimental reasons. By chance the two me...

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A village on the Georgian Black Sea is full of friendly people convinced they know each other. One day, Eliko is found hanged. His granddaughter Moe comes to organize his funeral. She is confronted with a web of lies and the tragic consequences of El...

A palpably rendered audiovisual essay draws together the distinct sensibilities of filmmakers Peter Mettler (The End of Time) and Emma Davie (I am Breathing) and philosopher David Abram (The Spell of the Sensuous) to forge a path into the places wher...

A Swiss filmmaker of Palestinian origin travels to the West Bank to make sense of the break-up with a childhood friend who became a Jewish settler. While trying to understand why their friendship has not held up in the face of the political situation...

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How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Sch...

Zurich-born Hugo Koblet was the first international cycling star of the post-war period. He was a stylist on the bicycle and in life, and a huge heartthrob. Koblet had a meteoric rise and won the Giro d'Italia in 1950. Once he had reached the zenith ...

What Swiss director Stefan Schweitert did for accordion music and for yodeling (Accordion Tribe, Cinequest, 2005; Echoes of Home, Cinequest 2008) he now does for traditional Balkan music. This wonderful film is also a love story – and a door into a w...

Paraguay's lush soy farms are battlegrounds between huge agri-business and small farmers. The GMO beans fatten up cattle in rich countries so steaks remain cheap. But the pesticides used are destroying the crops of the campesinos and harming their ki...

What happens after death? Lila Ribi's 100-year-old grandmother Greti always has the same answer: There is nothing after death. The filmmaker sees things differently....