Architecture of Infinity

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 Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. With the help of architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Álvaro Siza Vieira, artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias, and drummer Sergé “Jojo” Mayer, he tries to make sense of the world and decipher our spiritual experiences using the seemingly abstract concepts of light, time, rhythm, sound, and shape. The superb cinematography turns this contemplative search into a multi-sensory experience.

Picture of Light

A documentary of an expedition to Churchill, Manitoba to film the Northern Lights.

Journey to the Safest Place on Earth

Over 350,000 tons of highly radioactive waste and spent fuel rods are in temporary storage on site at nuclear power complexes and at intermediate storage sites all over the world. More than 10,000 additional tons join them every year. It is the most dangerous waste man has ever produced. Waste that requires storage in a safe final repository for hundreds of thousands of years. Out of reach of humanity and other living creatures. The question is, where? Together with Swiss-British nuclear physicist Charles McCombie, who has been searching for a safe final storage site for highly radioactive nuclear waste for thirty-five years, director Edgar Hagen investigates the limitations and contradictions involved in this project of global significance. Supporters and opponents of nuclear energy struggle for solutions whilst dogmatic worldviews are assailed by doubt

Exit: The Right to Die

Switzerland is presently the only country in the world where suicide assistance is legal. Exit: The Right to Die profiles that nation's EXIT organization, which for over twenty years has provided volunteers who counsel and accompany the terminally-ill and severely handicapped towards a death of their choice.

Hugo Koblet - The Charming Cyclist

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 of his career, Koblet was put under pressure by overly ambitious officials and ended up ruining his health with drugs. In 1954, he married a well-known model and they became a celebrity dream couple. After his athletic career ended, Koblet began to lose his footing. Threatened by bankruptcy, he crashed his Alfa into a tree.

Jour de Marché

Max Frisch, Citoyen

Max Frisch was the last big Swiss intellectual widely respected as a “voice” in its own right – a character hardly found today. The film retells Frisch’s story as a witness of the unfolding 20th century, wondering if such “voices” are needed at all, or if we could do without them.

Vagabonding Images

A film that ressembles a dream. Shot over a period of several years, it is composed of fragments of memory and moments of life woven together to create a sequence of microscopic stories. “Vagabonding Images” is a film that plays with the forms of cinematic language inspired by the poetic collage techniques of the French Surrealists and Japanese Haiku poets.

Into Great Silence

An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.

A Home Far Away

The extraordinary destiny of two people. After the Second World War, Lois is an actress in Broadway theatre, television and Hollywood films. Her husband, Edgar Snow, is world famous. A pioneer fascinated by China, he is the first journalist to film and interview Mao Tse-tung. Suspected by the American authorities of Communist sympathies, Ed and Lois are blacklisted. Together with their two small children, they go to Switzerland, mid-way between China and America, where they find a new home. A story of revolution, utopia, disillusionment, and hope.

Balifilm

Balifilm was originally commissioned as a stage performance, created from diary images and sounds collected in 1990 and 1992 by Peter Mettler on the island of Bali. The soundtrack is a live recording of eight Gamelan musicians playing the bronze and wooden instruments of Indonesia during the projection of the film. balifilm is a personal, lyrical observation and expression of the creative pulse of an extraordinary culture.

The Congress of Penguins

The real place where the penguin congress takes place is also the most fictional place on this planet where you can stand on your own two legs. Here, even the animals can talk. This land of dreams and nightmares is called Antarctica. In this desert of ice surrounded by a stormy sea, a few dozen human beings also live. Using sophisticated instruments, they observe the worrying changes affecting our world: the hole in the ozone layer, climate change, and so on.

GLOW

She was a muse, model and performer – a star, dazzling and intense. Lady Shiva managed to rise from street prostitution to the top. She lived in the fast lane and died tragically young. Her dream was to become a singer. With her companions, we trace her life during a vibrant time that kindles a yearning and provokes until today. The story of a woman’s meteoric fate and a great dream. An irrepressible desire for freedom in all its beauty and destructive force - and a stirring friendship and love.

David Wants to Fly

A documentary. David Sieveking takes the advice of his idol, David Lynch and tries out Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation technique.

Monte Grande: What is Life?

Documentary account of a man’s life in the face of imminent death – Francisco Varela's story told affectionately and gently, touchingly and astutely. Varela spent his life building bridges: between Western science and Eastern wisdom, neurobiology and philosophy, abstract theory and practical life. This film seeks to deconstructs the prevailing division between science and art.

Journal de Rivesaltes 1941-42

From August to October 1942, over 2250 Jews were deported from the internment camp of Rivesaltes to Auschwitz by way of Drancy. Among them were 110 children. Friedel Bohny-Reiter, a nurse with the Swiss Aid to Children, worked in this camp in the South of France. Like many others in the formerly unoccupied zone, it was run by the French. Once a military camp, it had been converted in 1941 into a transit camp regrouping Jewish, Gypsy and Spanish people living in the area or who had fled to the free zone as refugees. Thanks to the young nurse from Basel, many children were probably saved from certain death. The film follows the nurse on a visit to that still intact site as well as through the pages of the journal she wrote in those dark days, published by Editions Zoë, Geneva in 1993.

Middle of the Moment

Filmmakers Nicolaus Humbert and Werner Penzel examine the nature of nomadic existence in this documentary, from the literal nomads of North Africa to the more metaphorical kind of wanderer, such as American poet and ex-pat Robert Lax. Humbert and Penzel focus especially on the nomad's paradoxical ability to fully inhabit every moment while remaining coolly detached from specific locales and anxious thoughts about the past or future.

Von heute auf morgen

'From One Day To The Next' follows four elderly people through their everyday lives, observing how they cope with a gradual loss of autonomy.

Iraqi Odyssey

Tracing the emigrations of his family over more than half a century, this riveting documentary epic from acclaimed expatriate Iraqi filmmaker Samir pays moving homage to the frustrated democratic dreams of a people successively plagued by the horrors of dictatorship, war and foreign occupation of Iraq.

Le souffle du désert

A disturbing exploration of what it means to be a man Desert Wind unveils the innermost thoughts of 13 men about their lives and male identity, making a clean sweep of clichés. Their revelations -- a glimpse of the hidden side that few men spontaneously reveal -- are of equal interest for women.

The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story

A documentary chronicling Queen and Lambert's incredible journey since they first shared the stage together on "American Idol" in 2009.

OLIVIA RODRIGO: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)

Grammy® winner singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo takes a familiar road trip from Salt Lake City, where she began writing her debut album “SOUR,” to Los Angeles. Along the way, Rodrigo recounts the memories of writing and creating her record-breaking debut album and shares her feelings as a young woman navigating a specific time in her life. Through new live arrangements of her songs, intimate interviews and never-before-seen footage from the making of the album, audiences will follow Olivia along on a cinematic journey exploring the story of “SOUR.”

Tupac: Resurrection

Home movies, photographs, and recited poetry illustrate the life of Tupac Shakur, one of the most beloved, revolutionary, and volatile hip-hop MCs of all time.

Western Stars

The incomparable Bruce Springsteen performs his critically acclaimed latest album and muses on life, rock, and the American dream, in this intimate and personal concert film co-directed by Thom Zimny and Springsteen himself.

Avicii: True Stories

Documentary about the arena-packing Swedish DJ, chronicling his explosive rise to fame and surprising decision to retire from live performances in 2016.

David Byrne's American Utopia

A filmed version of David Byrne's Broadway show, a unifying musical celebration that inspires audiences to connect to each other and to the global community.

Reincarnated

Evolution as an artist is often times what separates legends from the more mundane. After being heavily influenced by his experience in Jamaica – and his subsequent name change from Snoop Dogg to Snoop Lion – the LBC showman prepares his latest reggae-infused album Reincarnated. As part of the process, VICE followed Snoop to the island nation as he recorded various songs with backing from Diplo, Ariel Reichtshaid and Dre Skull of Major Lazer. Having grown tired of what rap provided him, the documentary reveals the rebirth and inspiration for his latest project.

Shawn Mendes: In Wonder

A portrait of singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes' life, chronicling the past few years of his rise and journey.

Happiness Continues

A live concert experience and exclusive look into life on the road with The Jonas Brothers during their Happiness Begins concert tour.

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids

In January 2015, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the final nights of the "20/20 Experience World Tour", director Jonathan Demme captures what makes the show soar: gifted musicians, deft dancers and a magnetic star.

Lemmy

Over four decades, Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister has registered an immeasurable impact on music history. Nearly 65, he remains the living embodiment of the rock and roll lifestyle, and this feature-length documentary tells his story, one of a hard-living rock icon who continues to enjoy the life of a man half his age.

Amazing Grace

A behind-the-scenes documentary about the recording of Aretha Franklin's best-selling album finally sees the light of day more than four decades after the original footage was shot.

Live Aid

Live Aid was held on 13 July 1985, simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, and the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, United States. It was one of the largest scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: watched live by an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations. "It's twelve noon in London, seven AM in Philadelphia, and around the world it's time for Live Aid...!"

Adele One Night Only

A primetime special with performances from the superstar including Adele’s first new material in six years plus her chart-topping hits. The special will also feature an exclusive interview with Adele by Oprah Winfrey from her rose garden, in Adele’s first televised wide-ranging conversation.

Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me

After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.

Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated

A personal and intimate look into Demi Lovato's life as not only a regular 25 year old, but also one of the biggest pop stars in the world.

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten

As the front man of the Clash from 1977 onwards, Joe Strummer changed people's lives forever. Four years after his death, his influence reaches out around the world, more strongly now than ever before. In "The Future Is Unwritten", from British film director Julien Temple, Joe Strummer is revealed not just as a legend or musician, but as a true communicator of our times. Drawing on both a shared punk history and the close personal friendship which developed over the last years of Joe's life, Julien Temple's film is a celebration of Joe Strummer - before, during and after the Clash.

Dua Lipa: Studio 2054

Dua Lipa's kaleidoscopic rocket fuelled journey through time, space, mirrorballs, roller discos, bucket hats, belting beats, throbbing basslines and an absolute slam dunk of the best of times in global club culture throughout the decades.

Rammstein: Paris

During the “Made in Germany” tour, Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund filmed two acclaimed Rammstein concerts in March 2012 – each for an audience of 17,000 at the Bercy Arena in Paris. In the resulting film (with 16 songs from the entire repertoire),

Junun

A documentary capturing the creation of the album Junun inside Rajasthan’s 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort. Paul Thomas Anderson follows Jonny Greenwood, Shye Ben Tzur, Nigel Godrich, and the Rajasthan Express as they record a cross-cultural fusion of Indian, Israeli, and Western music.