Saving the Swiss cinema

Whether to kill time or to indulge their passion for cinema, people in lockdown from all over the world have turned to streaming or video on demand (VOD). Film consumption has reached record highs. Industry leader Netflix has recorded the strongest growth levels since its creation. But in the midst of the giant American platforms, small Swiss productions are invisible.

Swiss cinema is promoted on local portals, such as Cinefile, Filmingo and Artfilm, which also saw rapid growth at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of Filmingo users quadrupled. Cinefile recorded five times more viewers than throughout all of 2019, while the little platform Artfilm, dedicated exclusively to Swiss productions, saw 20 times more traffic than usual. But despite this significant growth, streaming will not be able to save Swiss cinema, according to key actors in the sector.

To fight against this phenomenon, the Swiss cinema industry is placing its hopes in the amendment of Switzerland’s Film Act, currently under discussion in parliament. In the meantime, you can support screening of independent films, and prevent the disappearance of our culture by checking out the local portals offering films through streaming: www.filmingo.ch/en, www.artfilm.ch/en/artfilm-ch and www.en.cinefile.ch.

Following are a few suggestions:

The Divine Order: www.cinefile.ch, trailer in Swiss German: https://www.youtube.com/watch

Platzspitzbaby: www.platzspitzbaby.ch

Citoyen Nobel: www.citoyennobel.com

Alpine Fire: www.cinefile.ch

Moskau einfach! www.kino-on-demand.ch

Paradise War – The Story of Bruno Manser: www.cinefile.ch

The Mistress: www.cinefile.ch or www.artfilm.ch

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Film at the Tribeca Film Festival, THE DIVINE ORDER is set in Switzerland in 1971 where, despite the worldwide social upheavals of the previous decade, women were still denied the right to vote.