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