Four new Swiss documentary projects, ripe for outreach treatment, were presented this week during FIFDH Impact Days in Geneva, with To the Moon and Back by Elisa Gómez Alvarez picking up the Swiss Impact Award, valued at CHF 2500. Business Doc Europe reports on the winning project, and the three other presentations: A Search for Love by Carlotta Piccinini, Imagine Peace by Fabian Chiquet and One Step Closer by French director Mehran Tamadon.
Elisa Gómez Alvarez’s To the Moon and Back follows two Gen Z scientists chasing the same dream of becoming an astronaut in a profoundly unequal world. At Asclepios, a Swiss-based, student-led analog space mission under the mentorship of astronaut Claude Nicollier, Pauline from the Philippines and Ilyasse from Morocco train side by side. The production notes underline how the film exposes the way the new space race reproduces old hierarchies of gender, geography, and access to STEM education. “Between rejection, resilience, and return, the documentary asks the question: who gets to leave Earth to imagine humanity’s future—and who is forced to stay and fix what’s been broken?” the film asks.
During the Geneva Impact pitch, aspiring astronaut (and Impact Producer) Pauline described herself as “a space biologist, a youth activist and an aspiring astronaut from the Philippines. I am passionate about dismantling industry gatekeepers and helping turn excluded talent from the global south into future space leaders.”
Director Gómez Alvarez responded, underling that she never wanted to become an astronaut, “but what I have in common with Pauline is that when I was a kid, I wanted to escape Earth. I wanted to disappear because I was raised in an environment shaped by domestic violence and mental illness. So, I had this power of [taking] myself away. And this is the core of my film – cultivating imagination as a space of resistance and shelter.”
“To the Moon and Back follows Pauline from the Philippines and Ilyasse from Morocco on their path of fulfilling their dream of becoming astronauts,” she continued. “[But] while doing this training they are confronted by how the new space race mirrors our hierarchies of gender, geography and access. Who gets to shape humanity’s future when simulation collides with the reality?”
The core of the Impact pitch, therefore, was to inspire youth from the Global South to pursue scientific paths and to underline the urgent need for stronger institutional support to enable them in this quest.
Pauline elucidated on behalf of the “frontline nations,” i.e. island and desert regions that are already experiencing the consequences of climate change. “We are the ones that need science and space technologies most for climate resilience and sustainable development,” she said. “However, our communities remain at the margins of the global technological narrative. If space exploration is our shared future, why are the most affected communities missing from the vision?”
“To the Moon and Back is our launchpad. Our impact campaign aims to break the gatekeeper cycle by providing accessible quality STEM training opportunities for the youth in the Global South. Based on the Swiss Asclepios model, we are organizing the very first 100% Filipino student-led analog astronaut mission. By fundraising scholarships, we are empowering those who have the talent but no access. And later on, we will bring this blueprint to Morocco and the MENA region.”
Director Gómez Alvarez revealed that film had will be rocketing to a major upcoming international festival, and has docked with Al Jazeera as a co-producer. “We will partner with the Swiss Asclepios Association connecting Gen Z voices and leading scientists through two key events this summer at EPFL and ETH [universities] in Zurich,” she added. “In parallel, we will launch the digital campaign and then later on in October, we’ll attend the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Turkey, which is the world’s largest space conference to bring the Global South youth perspective to space decision makers.”
Gómez Alvarez further underlines that the team is looking for 30,000 euros to pay an impact strategist and also to cover the costs of the upcoming activities in Switzerland and Turkey during the IAC.
The last word went to Pauline. “Help us turn island kids and desert dreamers into explorers and decision makers so that when humanity reaches for the moon, we are making sure that we’re not leaving more than half of the world behind.”
Carlotta Piccinini pitched her project A Search for Love in Geneva. In the film, Sereti Nabaala is a young and tireless activist fighting for the rights of Maasai women in Kenya. A survivor of female genital mutilation, which she underwent at the age of twelve, she carries within her the pain of broken intimacy and a self-love yet to be fulfilled.
She decides to travel to Europe to explore the possibility of clitoral reconstruction, a political act, but also a deeply personal quest, in pursuit of healing and of reclaiming her body on her own terms.
Through this process, Sereti connects with other women walking similar paths, among them Michela Villani, a Swiss sociologist working on gender and sexuality, herself on a journey of recovery from trauma. Their encounter ignites a dialogue about the body as a space of freedom, pleasure as an act of resistance, love as action, and care as revolution.
Before FIFDH, Swiss producer Esther van Messel (First Hand Films) outlined the importance of this film and the need to support it. “A Search for Love speaks with, and about, traumatized women who fight for their way back to lust and love. We want to reach audiences with a gripping story as well as make an impact in society and change it for the better,” she said.
“Our director Carlotta has a clear idea of the story she is drawing and at the same time an incredible openness and curiosity to cooperate with the co-authors Michela and Sereti, who are also protagonists in the film. Her style is visually strong and dramatically exciting,” she added.
Impact producer Danika Bobst articulated the sentiments at the core of her campaign. “We experience a cultural and political backlash in which women’s bodily autonomy and sexual rights are increasingly under threat, despite decades of advocacy, harmful practices such as FGM and child marriage persist, sustained by silence, stigma, inequality,” she writes.
“But a new generation of activists is opening spaces for change: consent-based alternative rites of passage, open conversations on pleasure and mental health, and survivor-led approaches to healing.”
“A Search for Love aims to amplify these emerging pathways, connecting Africa and Europe through dialogue and action. It is time to shift the narrative from taboo to self-determination, from violence to care, and to turn empathy into concrete agency.”
The Swiss director /producer pairing of Fabian Chiquet and Cyrill Gerber presented their film Imagine Peace, which already premiered at Solothurn and will be released across Switzerland in October 2026.
The synopsis reads how 100-year-old Edith Ballantyne fled from the Nazis in 1938 and found her purpose as President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. As an ally of the United Nations, she shaped the international peace movement and brought millions of people onto the streets for disarmament. Deeply concerned by escalating conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, she continued to call for dialogue until the end of her life. Imagine Peace carries her legacy forward, ensuring her voice lives on beyond her 102 years.
Producer Gerber pointed out that he and his team have a good few months to devise a strong impact campaign before the film’s Swiss release.
“In times like these, marked by escalating conflicts, growing polarization and increasing militarization, voices calling for peace and dialogue are often ignored,” he said. “So for us, it is therefore essential to activate and empower people for peace-building. We want to do this in two main ways. First, we want to create historical awareness for peace-building, and that concerns the society as a whole, but we especially want to reach young people.”
“That’s why we are planning film screenings at schools for students aged 14 to 19, together with cross-disciplinary teaching guides. We also plan screenings at universities and higher education institutions, combined with panel discussions with experts on peace, conflict, and disarmament.”
“Second, we want to encourage dialogue,” Gerber continued. “For this reason, we are planning special cinema screenings followed by panels that bring together people with different opinions and points of view. We also would like to bring the film into parliamentary context to ensure discussions among political decision makers and bring these topics onto the political [agenda].”
The French/Swiss feature doc One Step Closer was represented in Geneva by director Mehran Tamadon and producer Marianne Khalili Romeo.
In November 2023, during a dance in Crépol, in south-eastern France, 16-year-old Thomas was killed in a brawl between rugby players and young men “of North African origin” from the Monnaie housing project. Exploited by the far right, this tragedy traumatized some while stigmatizing others, widening fractures between neighboring communities.
The project notes stress that the film does not seek to revisit the crime, rather to accompany and record a collective process. Together with bereaved families, villagers, and stigmatized youth, the filmmakers set out to imagine and organize a new dance. Preparing the event, cooking, decorating, and deciding who to invite — each step is approached with care, turning daily gestures into opportunities for dialogue. The film follows this delicate effort to transform grief and division into the possibility of encounter, and to tell a different, more hopeful story.
In Geneva, producer Khalili Romeo outlined the team’s Impact priorities: “All screenings and debates will follow the momentum of the presidential campaign in France, whether for the general public or educational. And the impact re-enacts the democratic exercise proposed by the film itself, by establishing a few common rules for dialogue in the form of a small popular parliament, both in cinemas and in schools, supported by series of video capture clips.”
“It may seem obvious, but in this time of authoritarian regimes, which Mehran knows well, accepting other points of view to be expressed, and ultimately feel our disagreements or differences, can help us to coexist,” she continued.
“Many local partners are already involved with us, from organizing the ball, the party, to building national partnerships first and then international. One of them [the partners] is Canopé National Education [a public institution under the supervision of the French Ministry of National Education and Youth] which will be collaborating with us to create an educational booklet titled We Don’t Agree: We Discuss. We are also very excited to share with you to explore new ideas to continue this conversation and help us to implement this campaign,” Khalili Romeo signed off.
