DIRECTORS

Sergio Herencias is a film-director, cinematographer and motion designer. His works are characterized by the combination of aesthetic and powerful images leading to emotional and entertaining stories. He teachs at the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons .

Andreas Tanner is a 2D and 3D Artist. He specializes in animation and modeling, as a generalist he makes all other CGI tasks as well.  He teaches at The University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons.

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STORY

We all work, consume and want to live a good life. That is why we are all part of the economy. But more and more often some get a lot more appreciation and reward, while others go home empty-handed. On top of that, there is a large amount of unpaid, but vital, work, that goes unnoticed. Let’s go on a short journey and try to find out why that is.

DIRECTOR

Pascal Schelbli graduated as a graphic designer He directed several image films and different broadcast opener for the Swiss national television. Addicted to telling stories with computer generated images, he studied at the Institute of Animation at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg. “The Beauty” is his diploma film. 

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STORY

What if plastic could be integrated into sea life? Take a deep breath and dive into a world, where feelings of guilt dissolve amongst the mysterious depths of the ocean. A world where we encounter bizarre creatures and discover eerily beautiful landscapes. Unfortunately, our air doesn’t last forever and we have to realize that nature alone can't solve this issue.

DIRECTORS

Frederic Siegel is an animation director, visual artist and member of the “Team Tumult”. He also teaches animation basics and producing commissioned work & music videos. He graduated from the Lucerne School of the Art & Design.

Benjamin Morard is a director, animator and story artist. After graduating from the Lucerne School of the Arts & Design, he co-founded the “Team Tumult” where he creates commissioned animations and directs short films. 

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STORY

Leaving for his dream job, a satellite technician keeps solitude at bay by constantly texting with his old friends. After neglecting his duties a satellite leaves its orbit which causes the worlds network to collapse.

DIRECTOR

Jonas Steiner currently studies environmental sciences at ETH Zurich and freelances as a filmmaker on the side focusing on science communication. He looks to further connect these two passions in his further studies. 

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STORY

Dr. Wanja Nyingi is a Kenyan freshwater ecologist with a focus on community-driven conservation. The realization that scientists talk mainly among themselves and the knowledge gained seldom leads to change made her rethink how conservation should be practiced. She looks at ecosystems in a holistic way, integrating indigenous knowledge and local communities to conserve wetlands together with them. 

DIRECTORS

Vanja Victor Kabir Tognola has been exposed since an early age to high doses of cinema and TV, which made him fall in love with the cinematic language. He studies Film at ZHdK. 

Jan-David Bolt followed  his storytelling urge and landed, after two years of Germanistics, at ZHDK. He has developed a taste for the absurd and the grotesque.

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STORY

Maurizio is a young university student living in Zurich, with a passion for diseases. Unlike many others, he can see an inherent beauty in them. After all, what difference can exist between a flower and an infection, if they are both a gift of nature?

DIRECTORS

Maria-Theres Schuler is an anthropologist at the University of Zurich. She spent several years in Uganda for her research on humanitarian aid and received the Mercator Award 2020 for her excellent research. Katharina Weikl is curator, film maker and science communicator at the University of Zurich. Milica Jovcic is an illustrator and animator from Berlin. Mario Marchisella is a nmusician, composerand artist from Zurich.

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STORY

Since the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, humanitarian aid has increasingly been pushing to enable refugees with disabilities to lead a self-determined and independent life. What does this approach mean for those affected?

DIRECTORS

Susanne Fischer is a clinical psychologist and senior research associate at the University of Zurich. Johannes Laferton is a clinical psychologist and post-doctoral research associate at the Psychologische Hochschule Berlin. 

Sarah Steinbacher has a degree in Visual Communication from the ZhdK. She works as a graphic designer and scientific illustrator at the University of Zurich.

Reini Briegel has a master degree in geography. He also receiveda degree in Digital Filmmaking from the New York Film Academy.He works as a filmmaker at the University of Zurich

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STORY

Stress has become one of the most important explanations for a wide range of health problems. The media often pathologizestress and many people now think that stress is dangerous and should be avoided at any cost. This film explains what stress is and answers the question of whether stress really is as harmful to our health as we are often led to believe.

DIRECTOR

Raphaela Wagner shot her first short film “OnceOne” in 2018, with which she won the 14th Jugendprojektwettbewerb (SG) and the Smart Screen Creative Award for Entrepreuneurship. Raphaela went on to directed two MA films for UCL, including “NeoTouch” and is now doing her Master’s degree in film as well as working on her next short film “Saitenstich”.

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STORY

Five students use the technology “NeoTouch”, which allows users to feel touch over a distance. Their night escalates as boundaries blur and they pressure each other into sharing their experiences. The story picks up on current debates around consent. Ultimately, the film leaves us with a critical reflection on the way current technology mediates our interactions and an uneasy feeling about a future where haptic technology translates these digital challenges into a physical experience.

DIRECTORS

Barbara Weber, Elisabeth Bronfen, Dominic Huber, Kati Rickenbach, Yannik Böhmer. Bronfen is professor of American Studies at the University of Zurich and Global Distinguished Professor at New York University.

Weber is a theater director, performance artist and a curator. She studied at hfmt-Hamburg and was artistic director of the Theater Neumarkt in Zürich for five years.

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STORY

Crossmapping Corona! The literary theorist and cultural scientist Elisabeth Bronfen considers it an obvious fact: Zombie movies are the best prevention against pandemics. In a six-part web series that was produced for the Zurich Theater Festival 2020 she evolves in a cartoon setting designed by Kati Rickenbach building fascinating theoretical bridges between different parts of the universe of viruses. 

DIRECTOR

Vanja Victor Kabir Tognola has been exposed since an early age to high doses of cinema and TV, which made him fall in love with the cinematic language. Being an idiom intuitive to understand, but quite hard to express, he decides to study Film at ZHDK to improve his fluency. 

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STORY

Franco, an elderly man, lives his life in serenity together with his wife Margherita. The arrival of his brother Vittorio, with whom he hasn’t talked in years, breaks the calm.

DIRECTOR

Mei Fa Tan co-directed her first independent short film "Back Up" after completing film school, and imagined for the music video industry narrative and creative films, before starting to direct for advertising. Following several years of experimentation, she returns to her first love, fiction, with a new film "Time Machinery".

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STORY

In the 1970’s, a mother and her 9 year-old son gifted with a fertile imagination, are briefly trapped in an old elevator. The boy is convinced that the machine allows them to travel through time. Now, 40 years later, the mother seems to believe it as well. 

DIRECTORS

Timo Schaub studied film in Lucerne. His work ranges from staged and documentary projects to commissioned productions for the arts, as well as cultura projects with Bonny Orbit.  

Matthias Wolf studied psychology, screenwriting and cinema studies in Zurich. Since 2015 he works as a filmmaker, church musician and is a father.

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STORY

Voice messages of a young man in self-isolation. A small everyday problem pushes him into a downward spiral of paranoid thoughts about his own safety: a sick Calathea plant must be put into quarantine, so that it does not infect the other plants. The sick plant's circumstance increasingly merges with the very real threat of the Corona virus.

DIRECTORS

Barbara Strobl and Simon Etter received the Mercator Award 2020 for their excellent research and Citizen Science project "Crowd Water". Text by Mathias Grilj. Directed by Katharina Weikl, from Graduate Campus of University of Zurich and Tiny Giant Claudia Röthlin and Yves Gutjahr. Music by the percussionist and composer Fritz Hauser.

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STORY

A poetic-experimental film about a river in honor of the Mercator Prize winners Barbara Strobl and Simon Etter.

Water is life - Join the research of CrowdWater. www.crowdwater.ch

DIRECTORS

Daniel Bichsel is a passionate freediver and environmentalist. The film for him is primarily about passing on knowledge and experiences to inspire people with his enthusiasm and to spark a change in how we treat our oceans.

Chris Keller is a freelance filmmaker. He supports the environmental project "Abenteuer Schwarzwald Unterwasserwelten" as a volunteer filmmaker and photographer. In 2019 he began to study “media design and production” at university Offenburg. 

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STORY

Since 2018, Blancpain and Fregate Island Private have joined forces to study, restore and preserve the marine environment around the island located in the sapphire seas of the Seychelles. Coralive.org, BlueNomads.Org Survey Philippines and other partners led the field projects on Fregate Island.