This year Switzerland is the Country of Honour at the Cannes Marché, and celebrated at a series of events organised with Swiss Films in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR. At Cannes Docs May 19 Swiss Films will further present, together with Nyon-based docfest Visions du Réel, four Docs-in-Progress to the Cannes professional audience. Business Doc Europe spoke to the producers of the new works.
The 79/52-minute SONGS OF SISTERHOOD, directed by Hanka Nobis, is produced by Esther van Messel (First Hand Films, Switzerland) as well as Nobis through her company Offhand (Poland).
The synopsis for the film reads how Lu and friends were celebrated on social media for their fight against the conservative, oppressive norms of today’s Poland – but in reality, life is a struggle. Non-binary and polyamorous, they want to make the world a better place by living and breathing solidarity, but they are being ignored by the older generation, and crushed by reality.
“We are telling the romantic story of a lost generation, fighting for a better world today and in the future, and we’re telling it as a grand love story, think Gone with the Wind meets Breaking the Waves, minus the misogyny,” says van Messel.
Nobis’ first feature-length documentary Polish Prayers (2022) premiered at IDFA Luminous before its subsequent selection at over 20 docfests including CPH:DOX, One World Prague and Thessaloniki. In 2023, Nobis was awarded the Zurich Film Award as Best Director of the Year, across all categories.
“My director is a most highly talented and extraordinarily motivated young woman with incredible access and empathy for her protagonists. We are also developing her third and her fourth project these days,” van Messel underlines of Nobis. “We are a rare combination of Swiss solidity and Polish solidarity. Our team is here to help and support the filmmaker, and Hanka Nobis and her team are delivering unique content for the world: ambitious and accessible at the same time.”
The expected release date for the €350,000-budgeted film (42% in place) is November 2025. At Cannes Docs, van Messel is looking for further financing, presales, and co-producers to ensure it reaches its full potential.
“We aim for big cinema on one hand and are aware of new formats on the other hand,” continues van Messel. “Songs of Sisterhood can be a series, it can be a cinema experience, it can even be a bunch of TikToks… we want emotions! We want to make the audience fall in love and learn something, and we want to be the change we see in the world, even if it’s the world of entertainment only…”
Emilie Cornu, Charlotte Nastasi’s ROAD 190 tells of a death row inmate (Mabry) who, from his cell in Livingston prison, Texas, imagines the final journey that will one day take him to the place of his execution – sixty kilometres along which live and work those whose daily lives are tinged by the omnipresence of the prison system.
“Road 190 is a rare opportunity to dive into the reality of a man on death row and get to know him as a human being and not just a condemned man,” says producer Joëlle Bertossa of Swiss outfit Close Up Films. “It’s a movie about how prison changes the inmates but also the territory and the people living around them.”
“The directors have a unique access to Mabry and have been in contact with him for years,” she adds. “For the audience, Road 190 is a way to question themselves about the opportunity of forgiveness.”
Ninety percent of the €480,000 budget is in place and Bertossa expects an April 2025 release. In Cannes she is looking to pique the interest of festivals, sales agents and distributors. Close Up Films has been involved in more than 20 features, the producer further points out, including Advocate by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellyache, winner of a BAFTA, and I Am Not Your Negro by Raoul Peck, winner of a CESAR in 2017.
“It’s the first feature film of two young promising directors from Switzerland and Belgium.
Charlotte Nastasi graduated from a prestigious Belgium film school and Emilie Nastasi works as a criminologist,” says Bertossa. “Together they form a strong directing team.”
The feature doc HELVÉCIA will take audiences to Brazil to the eponymously named former Swiss and German colony where the film’s young protagonist Wesley lives. The synopsis tells how, as he experiences the transition to adulthood and the discovery of a first love, he tries to escape the destiny of most of the village inhabitants, that of working on eucalyptus plantations. During the summer holidays, he gets together with his friends to overcome the lack of prospects and to share their passion: taming wild horses.
Produced by Luc Peter and Katia Monla of Intermezzo Films, the 80-minute project is currently at editing stage, ahead of a March 2025 delivery. Peter is looking to raise the rest of the €420,000 budget via co-producers and gap financing. At Cannes he is also seeking out buyers and distributors as well as sales and festival interest, and strategic guidance.
“It’s a forgotten story in Switzerland, but very emblematic of global inequality,” Peter tells Business Doc Europe. “We want to show the resilience of disadvantaged populations, descended from slaves and under pressure from multinationals in a capitalist world. What kind of future can teenagers look forward to? What traces of this forgotten past are still present in the community today? What possibilities do the people of Helvécia have for building a different future? How can small moments of freedom maintain hope for a better life?”
Director Pablo Francischelli’s most recent documentary feature film Dois Tempos (2021), premiered at It’s All True/É Tudo Verdade International Documentary Film Festival and was screened in movie theatres, museums and film festivals around the world. Before that, he directed Electric Accent (2017), and Siba – Playing Through the Storm (2012). He also made the doc series A Invenção do Olhar (nominated for the Brazilian Cinema Grand Prix), Seven Lives, Seven Strings (Best Script award at São Paulo International Film Festival) and Refugee Sounds(in partnership with UNHCR).
“[As a] Brazilian director [he] can be closer to the subjects. As he moved to Switzerland three years ago, he will look at his subject from abroad as well as from the inside,” producer Peter says of Francischelli. He adds of his company: “Intermezzo Films is producing strong artistic projects, and we always allow necessary time to develop them. This project is delicate because of the subject, but also because we are filming teenagers and we do need time to connect closely with them.”
“In discussion with the teenagers, it became clear to me that the film’s strength would have to be built through the tension between these teenagers’ desire for freedom and their vulnerable social condition, a reflection of the colonial legacy,” Peter adds. “By telling the story of Wesley and his friends, the film allows viewers to empathize with the protagonists and their problems. There’s no analysis. As with fiction, the film aims to immerse viewers in their daily lives without amplifying the difficult, dark aspects.”
In TALE OF BABA, directed by Matthias Joulaud and Lucien Roux, Didier, a deaf farmer from birth, has just lost his eldest brother. Now alone in his isolated house in the Cantal mountains, he must find his way without his brother’s help. He must overcome his fear of the unknown and forge links with the other inhabitants of the hamlet. The film follows Didier’s routines as he has to reinvent his language and his exchanges, turning his handicap into a strength.
The 80-minute first feature has 85% of its €590,000 budget in place ahead of a mooted April 2025 delivery.
Co-directors Joulaud and Roux were responsible for the short film Ramboy which was recognised at various international festivals, including Visions du Réel and IDFA where it won Best Youth Film. It also It received the Golden Chair award at the Norwegian Short Film Festival which in turn earned it an entry for the Oscars, and was selected by the New York Times Op-Docs platform.
The Swiss/French Tale of Baba is produced by Juliana Fanjul (Akka Films, Switzerland) with Alexandre Cornu (Les films du tambour de soie, France). Fanjul’s previous films, which include Muchachas (Visions du Réel, 2015), Radio Silence (IDFA, 2019) and Je suis noires (Prix Cinéma Suisse, 2023), have been screened and awarded at numerous international festivals. As a freelancer, she previously produced documentaries for Radiotelevisione Svizzera (RSI) and Al Jazeera English. She joined Akka Films in 2021.
