Swiss film festival

Press, 5 December 1985, Page 18

Swiss film festival

A first-class selection of 22 recent Swiss films will be screened at the Academy during the next 11 days, beginning this evening with “Akropolis—Now,” which was written and directed by Hans Liechti.

Showing a flair for light comedy, “Akropolis—Now” is the first film directed by Liechti, who is also one of the best-known cameramen in Switzerland.

The story follows two Zurich friends—both in their mid-30s, one a married architect, the other a bachelor who owns a small cabaret—who decide to drive two American cars to Cairo via Italy and Greece to sell them for a big profit. They are joined by an attractive, mysterious French girl who succeeds in driving off alone in one of the cars and luring the two friends, now together in the other car, all the way to Athens.

“I was interested in three things when I made ‘Akropolis—Now:’ male friendships, women, and travel,” said Liechti, who visited Christchurch last week to publicise the films. “What I had felt personally during my trips I tried to bring into this film: the anticipation of joy, a feeling of rest after a few kilometres, the first surprises, the first disappointments, the third service station, the strange people, the awareness of being Swiss, the limitation of one’s own horizon, tiredness, a longing for washing and eating. Landscapes, lights, movements. At the end, the hope that one could be as one would like to be.

“The title, ‘Akropolis—

Now,’ has, of course, been influenced by Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now.’ It is in a way meant as an answer because in ‘Akropolis— Now,’ the journey ends with hope,” Liechti said. ‘‘Akropolis—Now” will be screened today and tomorrow at 8 p.m., and on Tuesday at 11.15 a.m. The festival is unique by being extensively devoted to a single country’s films. It certainly offers a comprehensive range of diverse film-making; from’ mainstream commercial film in glossy colour and 35mm to experimental, marginalist film, such as the controversial and highly political “Zurich is Burning,” which was put together by eight men and women from their video work.

The wide range of films includes:

© Comedy, “Der Record,” a satire about a couple trying to break the world record for television watching;

© Political narrative, “The Townmayor,” an archetypal liberal is pushed into a , corner where he must decide to fight the corruption, of his village; @ Documentary, "Handh capped Love,” about the sexuality of the disabled;

0 Experimental film, “Fetishes and Dreams,” which is also appearing in current Continental festivals;

© Music, “The People Never Die,” a filming of the leading Swiss composer, Klaus Huber’s oratoria on Nicaragua, revolutionary struggle and peace; and © Several shorts, including a selection of three by the highly acclaimed shorts film-maker, Michel Rodde.