The grand prize winner, “L’îlot” (“Like an Island”) at Visions du Réel, made its debut ahead of its international premiere at Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival in the Special Shows section. Michaela Čajková of Filmotor manages global sales.
Swiss director Tizian Boschi’s debut is a hybrid documentary full of magical realism.
Centered around two rangers, who secure a river that runs through a neighborhood in Lausanne, Switzerland. Ammar is new to the job and Daniel shares his experience. During their tours and meetings with residents, they observe and observe while forming connections. What could happen at the river?
Upon awarding the film, the Visions du Réel jury commented: “A small urban island becomes a metaphor for contemporary Europe and gives way to a deep reflection about the absurdity of borders, rules, fences, and barriers. A wonderful, surprising observation that rewrites the coordinates of geographical spaces in universal terms.”
The director, who filmed there in summer 2019 and summer 2020, says the community depicted in the film, Faverges, “has a strong sense of identity that makes you want to discover the neighborhood.”
He adds, “I was looking for a filming location. Someone told me about this place. Nature is in the middle of the city! A rustic place where you can see badgers and salamanders, where you get a sense of mystery. I felt we could tell a lot of stories there. I always believed that nature has potential.” Powerful for the imagination. When I work, I want to understand the place, and engage with it from different angles: meet the people, listen to their stories, but also understand the nature, geology, architecture, history and energy of the place. I didn’t have a text at first. I only had a curiosity for this area, the stories that It will be narrated about the river and the actor.”
Bushy says of the film’s hybrid nature: “I like to cut short a few touches of fantasy in a movie, to create a dialogue between what’s real and what isn’t. I like it when things get mixed up and we don’t know exactly what it is.”
Bucci graduated in directing from the University of Lausanne in the history and aesthetics of cinema and from the Institute of Diffusion Arts (IAD) in Belgium. He worked at Look Now! Based in Zurich, as a teaching assistant in the film department at HEAD in Geneva, and as a programmer for several festivals, including Neuchâtel Intl. Great Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Solothurn Film Festival and Korsfilmtag Winterthur.
Producers are Thomas Reichlin and Britta Rindelaub at Alva Film. Co-producers are Büchi, Michael Scheuplein and Clotilde Wüthrich on Territoires Sensibles.
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