CH documentary film competition of the Migros Culture Percentage
"Gasthaus Helvetia" is the name of the winning project of the 2nd CH-Dokfilm-Competition of the Migros Culture Percentage. Zurich documentary filmmaker Eric Bergkraut received the award at the Solothurn Film Festival on January 20, 2012. The Migros Culture Percentage, with the participation of SRG SSR, is covering the costs for the realization of the film. The theme for the 2012 competition is "Courage? Courage!".
Is the "economy" a place of freedom? The documentary filmmaker Eric Bergkraut, born in 1957, approached his film project "Gasthaus Helvetia" with this thesis in mind, and was equally surprised by the intended opposite and the possible confirmation. What freedom is at stake? The inns, which for Eric Bergkraut are unusual only because they are ordinary, are located in three different parts of the country. Do they and their guests reflect the verbose or taciturn freedoms of different cultures? Or is - quoting Bergkraut - "dead pants the general program"?
Eric Bergkraut convinced the jury with his idea of filming the theme of freedom on a journey through Swiss regular pubs. "Globalization with its effects on people has positive aspects, but at the same time goes hand in hand with a cultural loss," says Hedy Graber, Head of the Culture and Social Affairs Directorate of the Federation of Migros Cooperatives and jury president. Especially against this background, the film is an exciting contemporary document. One can be curious about the observed freedom of the ordinary and its challenges. How Eric Bergkraut will realize his ideas on film will become clear in April 2013, when the film is expected to premiere at Visions du Réel in Nyon.
2012 competition theme: "Courage? Courage!" Under the title "Courage? Courage!", the Migros Culture Percentage is announcing its CH documentary film competition for the 3rd time. It invites Swiss filmmakers to deal with current issues around the topic of courage in documentary form. We are looking for cinematic ideas from the everyday, social, political and economic environment - in short: the globalized context of life in Switzerland - that deal with the driving force of human thought and action in an independent and differentiated way. The Migros Culture Percentage is looking forward to stories in the field of tension between private initiative and social norm, between public manifestation and political sanctioning; stories of (up)breaks, risks, losses - and of course of success. (SDA)
