Ruth Hirschfeld

Raw Materials

A drama centered around a German construction manager who works with undocumented workers and an Albanian girl searching for her missing father.

The Black Spider

The courageous young midwife Christine makes a pact with the devil to save her village from the brutal terror of the Teutonic Knights. Punished by a spider plague, Christine goes from savior to hunted.

One-way to Moscow

30 years ago, Switzerland was shaken by a scandal that seems to have already been forgotten: more than 900,000 people were surveilled because of their political convictions. Against the backdrop of this "secret files scandal," Micha Lewinsky sets his film. Conscientious policeman Viktor Schuler is tasked by his superior to infiltrate the Schauspielhaus, a renowned Zurich theatre, in order to keep an eye on its leftist scene. However, Viktor finds himself quite taken with the artist's life and falls in love with the subversive actress Odile Lehmann.

The Divine Order

Nora is a young housewife and mother, living in a quaint little village with her husband and their two sons. The Swiss countryside is untouched by the major social upheavals the movement of 1968 has brought about. Nora’s life is not affected either; she is a quiet person who is liked by everybody – until she starts to publicly fight for women’s suffrage, which the men are due to vote on in a ballot on February 7, 1971.

Family Fragments

The film reconstructs the memories of a divorced family with empathy yet merciless precision. An intimate family story emerges during the investigation into the reasons for the separation. Hinging on the subtle and touching testimonies of the family members, the film delves into complex interrelationships. Actors bring the family's memories alive as if they were their own. The result is a chronicle of a family drama, which the real protagonists complement and comment on – a reflection on the mechanisms and dynamics shaping and directing their family life over the years.

Little Mountain Boy

A boy must brave deep winter snow to obtain an important family keepsake. Before he can even start this difficult journey he must first help his family survive financial ruin, rescue his beloved pet goat, and with his best friend, outwit a bratty bully who seems out to get him at every turn. Will he make it back to the village in time to celebrate the end-of-winter holiday of Chalandamarz?

Lovely Louise

André, 55, lives with his mother Louise, 80, and leads an unspectacular life. He works as a taxi driver while the elderly diva dreams of bygone days as an actress in Hollywood. One day the charismatic Bill, 50, an American, turns up on their doorstep - a stranger who will soon turn their quiet life upside down.

The Foster Boy

Switzerland, 1955. The young orphan Max is sent as a foster child and contracted to work for the Bösiger family who lives on a farm. His foster parents treat him like a workhorse while their son seizes every opportunity to humiliate him. Playing the accordion is the one thing that is entirely his. But when the new teacher stands up for Max, it only makes a bad situation much worse. The only thing preserving his will to survive is his friendship with Berteli, who was also taken on to work at the farm. Max dreams of Argentina with her: a fantasy world, where allegedly even hayforks are made of silver.

Frühling im Herbst

Leni, in her mid-fifties, runs the local bakery with her son in a small Swiss town. When she falls in love with a much younger Argentinean dance teacher, her world is turned upside down.

Cargo

The story of CARGO takes place on rusty space-freighter KASSANDRA on its way to Station 42. The young medic LAURA is the only one awake on board while the rest of the crew lies frozen in hibernation sleep. In 4 months will Laura's shift be over.

Deepfrozen

Ronnie lives in a small sleepy village and is the owner of a small company for deep-frozen goods. Daydreams, contact ads, the firemen's brassband, the weekly visits at his shrink and his buddy Lars' cynical remarks about air guitar and vinyl-records are the highlights of Ronnie's life. Already, as a kid, he suffered from being under the pressure of his power- and manhood-fixed mother. Ronnie's feelings are as deep-frozen as his goods. Until the day, a wonderful being - one of the female kind - strands in the village. The local priest hires the young girl, a groupie with the name of Zoya, as housekeeper and within days, Zoya turns the whole manship of the village mad and horny. Also Ronnie falls for Zoya and, well yes, lucky for once, marries her. However, since the presence of Zoya, strange things have happened in the village. Everybody who tries to search in Zoya's unkown past dies, disappears. Slowly that well-known fear sneaks into Ronnie's body: men's fear of women.

Sternenberg

Franz Engi returns to his hometown after being away for 30 years. A lot of things have changed in that time. There are only few families with children left in the village and that is why the school is about to be closed down. Franz decides to save the school and teacher Eva's job in a very unusual way....