WERNER SCHWEIZER made his first film in the mid 70s, at the age of 21, whilst reading sociology at the University of Zurich. Typically, it was a collaborative effort and political, two principles that were to characterise his work in the future. As a founder of the Videoladen co-operative, using video technology, he helped pioneer a new form of montage, a rapid succession of heterogeneous images creating a subjective, polemic, rap-like language. Videoladen’s best-known film employing this technique was the documentary Zurich is Burning, about the youth movement in that city.

In the early 90s, Werner formed Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduction [Joint Venture] with Samir. Together, they specialise in producing films for cinema and TV, with three focal points: politics, society and cross-cultural issues; and new forms of visual language. In the last ten years, they have produced eight fiction films and more than twenty documentaries, most of them released in the cinema. It is interesting to note that in Switzerland, a large number of documentaries are finished on 35mm and have a theatrical release. Dschoint Ventschr specialises in working with young filmmakers; ID Swiss is a case in point.

“My goal is to make and produce films with an ingenious creative power, an intriguing story, with drama, emotions, and new points of view. I would like my audience, after the screening, to have felt the filmmaker’s personal involvement, and perhaps also to have learned something new about people, society, history and the world we are living in.”