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28 Jan – 7 Feb 2027

Les petites illusions

Markus Imhoof | Switzerland | 1991 | 30' | IFFR 1992

In Les petites illusions Markus Imhoof is mainly interested in what Swiss cinema has not shown; the gaps in its memory. His contribution to Le film du cinéma Suisse is about the rejection and return of Jewish refugees to Hitler’s Germany (and also about hostility to foreigners in general), a subject which Imhoof earlier tackled in his film Das Boot ist Voll (1980).In contrast with La grande illusion (1937) by Jean Renoir, which confirms the myth of hospitable Switzerland, Imhoofposes smaller and les well-known films which put this over-optimistic picture into perspective. The reality was that many people fleeing Nazism where turned back at the Swiss border to face certain death.Imhoof took shots from e.g. Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe (1941) by Hans Trommer and Valerien Schmidely (fragments from this film are also used in the contributions of Jaqueline Veuve and Thomas Koerfer).

Also in this combined programme

  • Die Liebe zum Tod

    With his selection of film fragments Thomas Koerfer evokes the morbid and moralistic atmosphere of the Slump. As an innocent and comic proof of this,…

  • Ailleurs et ici

    Alain Klarer’s contribution is about the difficult relationship which Swiss film-makers had and still have with Swiss reality. Klarer uses as Leitmotif in his films…

  • Les débordants

    A remarkable collection of examples of dissolute, free, experimental and avant-garde films. Hassler added dream and fantasy sequences from more conventional films to fragments from…
View the entire programme

Film details

Country of production
Switzerland
Year
1991
Festival edition
IFFR 1992
Length
30'
Medium/Format
35mm