Film tips for September

The Iranian Film Festival Zurich (IFFZ) is celebrating its tenth anniversary in September. This special edition is dedicated to the avant-garde work of Dariush Mehrjui and his wife and screenwriter Vahideh Mohammadifar, who tragically passed away last year. In addition to film classics such as Mehrjui's milestone of Iranian new wave cinema The Cow (1969), the festival will be showing numerous new releases. The festival will open with the Swiss premiere of The Persian Version (2023) by this year's guest of honour Maryam Keshavarz.

Since yesterday Wednesday, 11 September 2024 | Frame | 20:15

Public discourse on Palestine is currently centred around the atrocities that are taking place there on a daily basis. There is a great demand for context on the current situation. The Palestine Arts Film Festival aims to create understanding in this regard. Over the course of four days, the films shown will shed light on various facets of culture and everyday life in Palestine. The festival is therefore a platform for Palestinian voices; here they should be able to shape the discourse.

From Thursday, 12 September 2024 | Arthouse Picadilly cinema | 19:00

In addition to Le Mystère Picasso (1956), the Filmpodium is showing another documentary film about a remarkable artist this month: A Bigger Splash (1973) delves into the extraordinary oeuvre of David Hockney. Director Jack Hazan mixes documentary and fictional elements, juxtaposing interview passages with staged shots of naked men by the pool. With this mixed form, he paints a revealing picture that not only explores Hockney's artistic work, but also his private life.

War has also been raging in Ukraine since February 2022. This month's Xenix programme highlights Ukrainian filmmaking, which continues to produce strong works despite limited production possibilities. The cinema is showing several premieres in September, including A Picture to Remember (2023) by Olga Chernykh. In her moving essay, she interweaves the fates of three generations of Ukrainian women by combining archive material with footage from the present day.