Beresina oder die letzten tage der Schweiz
Switzerland,
1999, 108 min
Shown in 2000
CREDITS
- dir
-
Daniel Schmid
- prod
-
Marcel Hoehn
- scr
-
Martin Suter
- cam
-
Renato Berta
- editor
-
Daniela Roderer
- cast
-
Elena Panova, Martin Benrath, Geraldine Chaplin, Ulrich Noethen, Marina Confalone, Stefan Kurt
- source
-
T & C Film , Seestrasse 41a, CH-8002 Zürich, Switzerland. FAX: 41-1-202-3005
OTHER
Leading Swiss filmmaker and Bay Area favorite Daniel Schmid applies his wicked sense of humor to the fatherland in Beresina or the Last Days of Switzerland, a rollicking sociopolitical farce that roasts just about everybody in a position of power. You don’t have to be Swiss to enjoy Schmid’s scathing indictment of corrupt stuffed shirts or to applaud the irresistible rise to power of a Russian call girl who just wants a Swiss passport. Beautiful young student Irina (Elena Panova), recently immigrated from her native Elektrostal, is remade by a flighty fashion designer and a young shyster lawyer into an exotic prostitute who satisfies every perversity of her illustrious banking, political and military clients. When these same customers later decide to expel her, she fights back, setting off a chain of events that lead, as the title promises, to the last days of Switzerland. Schmid uses biting wit to expose Swiss high society as a hypocritical façade hiding secrets from money laundering to pimping, with the banks involved in absolutely everything. Special mention goes to production designer Kathrin Brunner’s ironic sets, while Renato Berta’s lensing creates the absurd fairy-tale atmosphere the film needs to make its very funny, deeply original mark.
—Deborah Young, Variety
FACTOID #343
Director Sally Potter was the first person to be honored with the Festival’s Satyajit Ray Award. In 1993 she was interviewed onstage and her new film Orlando was screened. In 2005, she turned the tables by interviewing Peter J. Owens Award recipient Joan Allen.
