Les pionniers

A homage to the silent period of Swiss cinema and also a homage to silent cinema in general. The very start was in 1896 when cameramen from the Lumière Brother made short documentaries in Switzerland. We also see examples of how the advertising potential of the new medium was exploited, providing very comical fragments, of cinema as a narrative art form with a great attraction for audiences and how cinema was restricted or used to moralise when its magic woke the concern of the protectors of morality and when censorship made its entrance. Les pionniers includes very entertaining fragments from La vocation d’André Carrel (1925) by Jean Brocher, in which a burlesque drunkard’s act is put on which also waves a warning finger at alcohol abuse.Jean-François Amiguet (1950, Vevey) completed his study in politics at the University of Lausanne. Since 1974 he has worked on several productions by Alain Tanner, Marcel Schüpbach and Yves Yersin.