Not all Swiss people see the same films

On the occasion of the Swiss film season in Soleure, Christine Salvadé considers one of the obstacles that Swiss film distribution is up against: multi-lingualism. "While the screen-life of films tends to be getting shorter and shorter, and Hollywood films are charging through our cinemas at a speed that is difficult to control, French-speaking Swiss viewers have to wait up to thirteen months to express an opinion on a German-speaking film. When, that is, the film is accessible, because a large number of fictional films are never sub-titled or dubbed and thus never distributed beyond the boundaries of language. This is blatantly obvious in Soleure, where Prizes for Swiss cinema were awarded last night: a lot of the films nominated had been seen either by German-speakers or by French-speakers, but rarely by both. ... The lack of enthusiasm among the Swiss to learn the language of others is not making things any easier: On this side of the Sarine, films that are not dubbed are at best confined to art-house cinemas, be they made in Zurich, Saint Gall or Senegal."

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