A memory of something that never existed
Elias Bötticher | 2025 | Documentary, Experimental | 29 min
Longing for a city of lights, Fadri wanders through distant memory spaces.
Longing for a city of lights, Fadri wanders through distant memory spaces.
A waitress can no longer ignore her grief when a cake appears made by her dead mother.
A filmmaker is researching the subject of paid sex in Switzerland.
A group of high school students has to break into the principal's office.
A not quite traditional fairy tale about care work.
Annette travels to Korea with her adopted son and meets his birth mother.
During her cure stay Charlotte F. detects a shift in her husband's character.
At a rum punch-fueled dinner party, chaos and secrets spark unlikely bonds.
Surrounded by voices, person C tries to bring order to their chaos.
A research team embarks on a quest to uncover the secret that makes plants bloom.
The Indian migrant worker Mary is torn between budding emotions and her distant homeland.
After her grandpa’s burial, Terri faces grief, love, and her narcissistic mother.
An art student, a real estate agent, and two lovers - and their carefully crafted facades.
Stefan is diagnosed with dementia and must learn to live with this challenge.
Everything’s wrong — then a grandpa shows up.
Unemployed and adrift, Selma strives to reclaim control over her life.
South African students from all walks of life deal with an unforgotten past.
A Tale of Decay.
Women are raising their voices against the oil extraction in the Amazon region.
Between volcanoes and fairs: Matilda wrestles with origin, distance, and change.
A young soccer player is overwhelmed by the closeness of his friendship with a teammate.
Whim and the Ensemble have to dance for their lives in the piece SYNCOPE.
Anyone who wants to eat meat must pass a test.
A researcher finds her own past in glacial ice.
A woman and a married man meet in a motel room for their secret affair.
Maya carries memories of someone else in her head and has to face her own past.
The airport, the melting-pot of different symptoms of our times.
Three friends, their “safe space”, the impending end of the world and colorful milkshakes.
A chemical plant transforms a beach into a white paradise - a whale becomes stranded.
A harmless argument between two children ends in death threats between the two fathers.
Between thousands of tonnes of container steel, Rudmer is on his way to becoming a captain
As Hanka and her grandfather Bobek open preserved jars, they delve into the past.
A train journey disrupts the family’s idyll.
An easily distracted young woman loses her grip on time.
A flat search through death notices
A film about groups, their moods and dynamics that can emerge throughout a day.
A visual study of the ambivalence of human needs.
A story of belonging, melancholia and ripped roses.
A stormy concert. A winemaker. And her blind father who won't listen.
A listless young man suffers from the expectations of those around him.
Play becomes serious: a journey into the depths of repressed memories.
To feel the wall you are running against, it is necessary to move.
The opera singer Enrico is confronted with his mothers death on the premiere night.
Stop feeding the salamanders!
5 episodes about imperfection in relationships.
So that the silken thread does not tear, the firstborn takes over the parental tasks.
Due to the current political state, a Polish grandma is asked to emigrate to her family.
A journey to a crystallized past through the residents and workers of an elderly home.
Is love more than just a projection?
Mrs. Bünzli does not want to take in a refugee.
A young Maroccan in search for love and a brighter future. What price will he pay for it?
In a medieval village, Valesquita discovers the sinister machinations of her mother.
Destruction is a part of us, we are part of it.
Unable to afford a fancy holiday, a family hides at home to save their reputation.
Onur leads the filmmaker to the gay prides in lstanbul and Zurich.
The twins Lucie and Pierre believe they have switched bodies.
Summer is over, it's hard to let it go.
In the care of the forest Yuna finds acceptance for the cycle of life.
On her magical search for freedom, Mia also finds herself.
Silvia is going through a day of defeat.
Crush. Crush. Crash.
Seven places where people are on a cigarette break.
Everything ticks in Triberg, the birthplace of the cuckoo clock. Only time stands still.
It seems all difficult for the family. But the hope is still there.
A portrait of a family is revealed through their dreams.
Four groups sweat without noticing that the water is up to their necks.
Unable to overcome the death of her dog, Isabell decides that no one should have a dog.
A mother is confronted with her son’s suicide.
The end of an era is near – for a generation as for the Café Zentrum
Four strangers are waiting for a train in an remote train station.
Larissa, a young woman seeks recognition using socialplatforms as guidelines.
Dave is the last human in an office full of hip robots.
Hate your job? Don’t jump! Watch THE NITWITS instead.
Josef wants to fly and Claudius wants to make his degree film.
A peasant couple loses everything, but they discover love.
How does one stand growing old?
Only one will leave the inn alive.
A father-son story about faith and heavy metal.
A Romeo & Juliet story set in the Kosovo War 1998.
Manuela erlebt auf dem Geburtstag ihrer Freundin Vanessa eine unvergessliche Nacht.
Gaia lives alone in the forest. To save the planet, she needs to go to town.
Arada – displaced to a foreign homeland.
A digital shopping experience.
Mother, daughter and cat are looking for love.
A portrait of a country, being incapacitated by the war – it had lost its limbs.
Four young Ethiopian Jews struggle with racism against their community in Israel.
Reto, who decidedly has enough troubles of his own, drives a teenage runaway home to Italy
Princess Therese of Bavaria, travels incognito to Brazil in 1888.
In search of a stranger, a young woman goes into her deepest dream world.
Two politicians shake hands. The situation gets out of hand.
Fabrice is getting abused by his girlfriend, what is he going to do?
A Swiss-Korean girl meets a mysterious North Korean man, who appears in her wardrobe.
During a night’s drive, Luca is caught up in his past and loses his sense of reality.
In the future everyone has a brain implant from TEL that gives people telepathic abilities
13-year-old Emil fearfully awaits his mother’s arrival.
Christina lets Joel take nude photographs of her. Can she trust him with them?
Dave is the last human in an office full of hip robots.
Dialogue with a penal colony.
Sweat, blood and tears go into making every dish.
Are we shaped by our memories or are we shaping our memories?
Irna seeks comfort in her own world, where rubber doll Elias makes up her reality.
Dimi visits his hometown in Italy, which he regrets right at the start of the journey.
Sarah is pregnant and has to tell her divorced parents the big news.
A journey into the depths of the subconscious.
Leon finally wants to leave everything behind him and start a new life.
With friends, sex at an afterhour, an unspoken No. All good?
A little girl is immersed in the grieving process of her father‘s death.
Together with his mother Finn moves into an old house.
Roli comes to Fareed’s assistance when he is faced with the burial of his Muslim wife.
Pippa looses herself in dreams of becoming a famous actress.
An intimate play about dark and hidden desires.
Luka is clattering through the night with his Piaggio Ciao until he met a little boy..
Two friends are partying with an unexpected visitor.
Maximilian loves daydreaming, but his mother won’t let him.
Leandra has to bring her husband Paul into a retirement home. But he would rather go to th
What is the consequence of an immolation by fire? Can radical action really change things?
David is not ready for fatherhood. He starts using steroids.
Lea is in the middle of her preparation for an important figure skating competition.
Children with an immigration background find a common language in classical music.
15-year-old Mia is facing an overwhelming transformation.
The view of a child of a family breaking apart
Anna has doubts but she must decide and go down a painful path.
A man tries to safe the employees of a Swiss bank by the use of interventions.
Maren is a tourguide. Her motto: keep smiling & retain composure, until Max is in her bus.
A flat full of cameras and a cat with hurt feelings are going to be Monas’ worst nightmare
Shortly before a fight, boxer Tom hast lost his courage to win.
Swimming. Night. Adolescents. A dangerous balancing act between game and reality.
Tim falls in love with a corpse, which he should deliver to a necrophiliac brothel.
A portrait of an manic-depressive teenager
When I came of age, my father gave me a film about my life.
An concept about machines and their transcendency.
A group of seniors is trying to find their place in the digital age.
A girl with Turkish heritage who discovers that she has none and many home countries.
Carnival
Anoosh and Arash are at the centre of Tehran’s underground techno scene.
A women, in a car, in the woods, at night. She hits something with her car.
Rafael invites you to a "Celebrity Advent Dinner"
Rafi and Alex decide to focus on a new science: Paleontology.
EUGENE (50) lives alone in his small apartment at the edge of a city.
Bad images should disappear suddenly! Since negative images mustn’t been thought.
When Lena is fed up with her drunk father she escapes from home.
While Elin is doing a geological expedition she gets disturbed by an unexpected incident.
A cinematographic experiment in four episodes.
A glimpse of a city at night. Humans appear, stand still, stumble and disappear.
NATALIE (35) has a first date with SASCHA (40), a guy from a dating website,
Alina is fifteen when her stepfather, a stately Nigerian, is arrested for dealing drugs
An homage to the unspectacular.
FAMILY FRAGMENTS reconstructs the memories of a divorced family.
A documentary essay-like film about the deportation center in Zürich.
The old fashioned young inventor called Leonardo dreams of flying.
Katharinas decision to leave the band is more sweeping than it seems.
The long-serving head of a prison hospital ward suddenly looses control.
"In summer everyone goes on vacation, to the beach I guess."
A serial killer terrorizes Zurich.
In the deep south of Italy a group of men play a drinking game named: Padrone e Sotto.
The quest for happiness between hotdogs, free parking spaces, and self-assembly furniture.
One day, Riham finds his father dying in the desert.
In the vacuum of depth delusion is pulsating.
Do fat girls fuck better?
...in july, at the campsite by a river.
Hanna almost came to terms as a permanent guest at the campsite.
Anna (20) steals things. Pieces of luggage is what she likes best.
In the midst of the steep slopes of the Maggia Valley they live.
Family reunion on christmas eve. Secrets are being disclosed, nerves are on edge.
Nadir realizes that his son has had a change of heart he never thought was possible.
Besjan, a young Kosovo Albanian boy receives from his uncle a job.
A little work of art can have a big impact.
Mathias and Nina are prospective parents. But their relationship is on shaky ground.
Armin travels to Indonesia with two friends to find his birth father.
A Ukrainian bus, old in years and kilometers.
Lolita goes anarchy.
To be able to finish the school, i have to deliver something now.
Alfonso is a stage hypnotist, gruff and shrewd.
The film is about a carpentry apprentice who is confronted with his craft and himself.
"Sunday with the familiy" is an intimate portrait of a family observed from the kitchen.
Two siblings, a brother and a sister, meet in an empty house.
Forced to be alone: Whenever Lothar sneezes, nearby objects explode. To
Girl meets boy on the moon.
An intimate Portrait of two brazilian immigrants.
After his own death Ibrahim finds himself in an endless white plane.
Surrogacy in a clinic in the Northwest of India.
Silent hide-and-seek.
UNKNOWN TERRITORY accompanies young migrants during school in the integration class Basel.
What is love?
Parachutes takes place in a future where the sea doesn’t exist anymore.
«Heidi goes Alfa» is a 10 year project about my car and myself.
Boris surprises his 10 year old son Frederik with a fishing trip.
Cem runs away from his family who want to ship him back to Turkey.
A figure, made of lumps of earth overgrown by something.
A nightmare awakes Luca out of his wedding night.
In a photo booth, a baby is crying.
To rekindle their sex life, a young married couple decides to resort to role-play.
Parvaneh, a young, Afghan migrant is living in a transit centre for asylum.
When his mother discovers the hiding place, Manuel loses his last refuge.
Emma and Gloria are having coffee before work.
A musical journey with Pippo Pollina.
Vincent wants to go home to persuade his wife to come back to him.
A story from the swiss backcountry.
Anna travels around to find locations for a movie production.
At a party. Young artists and bon vivants.
3 adolescents, 7 days, an egg, an eye, an unlimited horizon, the loss of innocence.
She´s on a train. He sits down opposite her.
Leyla (15) is caught in an unhealthy relationship with "Big", an unpredictable man.
A tragicomic portrait of a family living beyond the usual conventions.
A young man thinks about where he might be today, if certain things had been different.
Three atients in a psychiatric institution with the same goal: they want out!
With all his energy Paul tries to take care of his wife at home.
Paul Haller led a life of yearning for the absolute truth.
Twenties. A young and solitary alchemist. His dedication: Botanical species and nymphs.
The War ends. An old soldier returns to the ruins of his hometown.
Samuel meets Philippe, one highly admired collegue of his best friend Andreas.
Sarah Sheeba was born in India and left behind in a home by her sick mother.
Three muslim women, three generations, one family.
Eddy just wants to throw some baskets at his favorite basketball court.
Three siblings are growing up in the war.
Tiger`s Nose is an 80-year-old Tibetan. He was imprisoned for over 30 years.
An inward journey through a distant country
Right in the middle of.
Two patients meet each other in a hospital.
In a Spanish hotel Sven is looking for love.
The ransom keeps waiting. The kidnappers are getting nervous.
Who said that at home you can feel save?
Everyday life is a gray prision, one that gradually wears down the variety of life.
Parents of two children, they try to avoid their problems in their own way.
The shy sales girl Anna passes the crêperie each day on her way to work.
May, a young Chinese girl secretly works at a flower shop.
It’s a normal day in a coffee shop of a small American town. Suddenly the oxygen runs out.
Reto makes guided tours through Zurich.
STANDBY is a little story about a young man’s uncertainties.
A young man is waiting for her to give him a sign, that may never come.
A boy dreams of being a great soccerstar.
Fabienne is in the forest to finish her Photography-Project for School.
Out of boredom a group of young girls gets carried away with frays on the playground.
The story of a young woman and the longing for her deseased mother.
The brothers Oli and Jan are confronted with the absence of their parents.
Es gibt viele unterschiedliche Ansätze, Fiktion zu erklären.
Immer wieder zieht es den Autor in sein griechisches Heimatdorf zurück.
Daniel Schmid became a storyteller – and remained one all his life.
A perch is caught, left lying, then stolen, only to be found again.
A experimental portrait of a exil scout.
An Indian family searching for the proper formula for “love” and “marriage”.
Since the death of his grandmother, Leo (15) has to do housekeeping for his grandfather.
Connie (14) is new to the village.
A Game with the convergence of nature and urban space.
The Man and the Girlfriend live in a loose relationship.
Bruno, an unsuccessful sales rep, doesn’t have the heart to cook a lobster.
Alice is waiting for her acceptance letter from the arts college.
A story about love and death
A lesbian fairytale depicting the possibility of overcoming social borders.
Simone has to attend her father's funeral. But she misses her connecting flight.
Life is expensive.
Lejla works with her friend Anci in a noble hotel restaurant on the top of Sarajevo.
The last days of World War II.
A Boxer is visited by his brother.
Three couples who are close friends get together for a leaving party.
Lisa starts her new part-time job at a canteen.
In a sleepy mountain village in the Bunderland, Father Ernst Vial celebrates Mass.
Lisa and Michael travel around the world as Swiss seamen.
A father and his little daughter are at the supermarket, suddenly the cellphone rings.
An abandoned tourist resort at the end of the world.
Three men living on a camping site between a highway, a river and two cliffs.
Fredy is a photographer. He is afraid of getting blind through an upcoming eye surgery.
Kurt locked himself in the closet and refuses to come out.
Elena is almost thirty but her life still doesn’t seem to have started.
An evening at the Crazy Fish Sushi Bar.
Ralph is secretly in love with his flatmate.
Julian, a simple farmer's son from the country side, loves his home in the mountains.
Ein Essay über geträumte Bilder und der Suche nach Wirklichkeit.
Shenthuya, Jana, Joana, Haris and Renad attend school receiving special tuition.
Alphons is on the way to his suicide
Antoine glaubt fest an eine Sache: Seine Mutter komme sie ihn besuchen – als Engel.
A village in Switzerland. Every friday, Muslims come to pray in the old schoolhouse.
Mannu and Flo are broke. But they have a plan: Canada.
Fourteen-year-old Leander thinks his willy is too small.
Toggenburg. Since the day I left the valley, I have missed it.
The film is a remarkable journey through the rooms of a hotel.
A musician, a physicist and a man with a disability pension.
A couple have been living together in a long relationship.
Endo and Andre are two bothers who haven't spoken to one another for years.
The film accompanies four mentally handicapped musicians in their everyday lives.
A hospital waiting room at two o’clock in the morning. Two strangers meet.
Just enough money for cigarettes and to have their own apartment, an unattainable dream.
Dolores has had enough.
A car dealer who believes he is a cowboy and a man in a suit.
Due to their mother's illness, a brother and sister have to make concessions
Iuna is spending her spring vacation in canton Jura with her friend Svetlana.
On the shore of a forsaken island Hannu digs in the snow, attempting to relocate a place.
Two key monents in the lives of Curdin and Lea: their meeting and their later separation.
Istanbul, Bosphorus. The old ferryman Captain Riza is the last one in his business.
The child prodigy Floh has a wild story to tel.
Antoine and Meier were best friends as teenagers.
Zwingerlin is stuck in a seaport.
Die junge Japanerin Kimiko steht kurz davor, ihre Heimat zu verlassen.
Tom visits his parents with his girlfriend to break important news.
It’s easy to believe in love – if you live 697 kilometers away from it.
Once upon a time, there were Jonathan and Paul, and both loved Sophia.
Viktor is a vampire who feels like a failure because he has not managed to bite anyone.
The story of Sibylle, who has to deal with her grandmother's senility.
I want to know, how someone can learn to tame his/her inner beast.
One day two old ladies meet unexpectedly at a hairdresser’s.
12 year old Florian is in love with the much older Juanita.
Katharina fährt durch Polen.
The vintner Jean is being replaced by the wine expert Luc.
Both say that it was the love of their lives. But this love could not be.
A short story about lonelyness in the midst of a modern-day family.
Oscar and his father watch Oscar's son play a football match.
A little boy is standing with his mother in front of the toyshop „Belmondo“.
Mary and Jacques are fleeing from the police with their booty on Christmas Eve.
Diana is a respectable woman of 67 who lives an uneventful life.
This film should have been about the former nannies of the director.
Zurich East is a documentary roadmovie and a tribute to friendship.
Married for 30 years, Ernst and Edna lead the usual life of couples their age.
One morning, Siegfried discovers something strange in his toilet cistern.
"Un momento" describes Bellino's brief encounter with love.
One day Lea ruthlessly runs after a new challenge.
Film, Opera and Music become one.
Mari-Carmen and Conchita are playing and talking. They open a fictional dialogue.
Laila, 18 delivers pizzas, but she dreams of becoming a musical comedy star.
The author sends her alterego “Susi” on a search to find the prince of here dreams.
A couple prepares to receive their guests.
In a letter to a friend, I tell about my thoughts about the flow of life.
A young man is put to the test as a newly trained customs official.
A couple takes a car ride in the Alps.
More than 800 people inhabit Lochergut, a tower block in the heart of Zurich.
Konrad falls in love with a beautiful, unknown man in a photo.
Paul works as an employee in a big office.
Maria represses her loneliness by sacrificingly caring for other people's problems.
Rita was the great role model of my childhood.
Choreographer Barbara Cleff places an advertisement and wakens many dreams.
An accountant dies and finds himself on the train that is supposed to take him to paradise
In 1970 Nico G. was adopted. 30 years later he wants to find his birth mother.
A round of inconspicuous events.
A film about the tangled paths of love.
Wesley visits Salome, he had a holiday romance with her in London.
Der Computerspezialist Adam wird in ein abgelegenes Kloster gerufen.
A postcard. A little holiday story, in a country without borders.
Man and the power of nature in the mountains.
Today is his best day, today is the supernova.
We have technology on our side. - Will mother nature be with us, too?
A fleeting lighting mood brings a painful memory of the surface.
Never has the shy Thomas let his feelings run wild for his father.
Zurich Central Station. She is from Berlin, he is from New York. Their eyes meet...
Wilhelm Tell takes Walter into the mountains, where he abuses him behind a rock.
At a dinner with her boss everything goes wrong for Karin.
An island owner and his life between dream fulfillment and everyday life.
An agent is searching for a missing person at Dr. Gruber.
Love is just a projection.
A young father and pilot takes off for the last flight.
In the private prison CIP manipulates Dr. Block the time perception of a prisoner.
Boredom and unfulfilled longing determine the life of the young casino owner.
Carla loves the vastness of the sky, close to the clouds.
Vanessa gets lost in the timeless labyrinth of her decisions.
Ein Paar liebt sich in einem Hotel.
Pofonok tells the story of victory and defeat and life in Budapest.
Three thefts on an afternoon…
An experimental game with the image of the woman.
Childhood experiences can leave their mark. Paul is being followed by them.
The everyday meanness in life lure Andrea into the sidelines.
One morning we woke up and realized we were ordinary.
Can birds fly in the cage?
A love story in Vienna.
Life moves in mysterious ways.
Zeynep, a turkish women, is about to be deported
ACEDIA I ist ein interaktives Video über Langeweile, Überdruss und Betriebsamkeit.
Without commentary, Steff lets boys and ancestors explain their world view.
16.7.1969. Der erste Mensch betritt den Mond. Malcolm ist der Zweite – oder Dritte.
Moris must be forced into isolation.
A film about the proliferation of the unconscious - the longing of the princess.
A successful director is looking for a young actress.
Two horror movies in a love movie.
A couple is fighting until the end becomes a new beginning.
Once upon a time O. wakes up from a nightmare...
I’m on my way. It leads me through my memories. All the way to home.
Thorns turn into flowers through love.
Shannet shares her journey of healing the wounds caused by transphobia.
Wild Bees are being displaced from their habitat by farmed honey bees.
The restless collector Klemens is alone with his vision, he has to clear his storerooms.
The bond between two siblings suffers the burden of domestic violence.
A night on an empty campsite turns into a nightmare for three young camp leaders.
Three people, a film crew, one goal. They want to make a sustainable change in society.
An untold war story
An inexplicable shift in the rules of the world brings to light people’s forgotten dreams.
A lonely artist is called by a disembodied voice.
Petting mice, styling dogs, killing cows.
Can homeless Nia escape her predicament?
Frida goes through a rollercoaster of emotions, told in a surprising and multilayered way.
A political hero's journey without a happy ending
Book antiquarian Karlsen can not get away from his store.