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