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Noah Gsell

Actor

Films

Lenz

Lenz

By Thomas Imbach

2006 | 93 min | Drama

An unconventional portrait of a man whose motto in life is reminiscent of Romantic poets: a genius writes their own rules.

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Day Is Done

Day Is Done

2011 | 111 min | Documentary

Over a period of more than 15 years, Swiss director Thomas Imbach filmed with a 35mm camera from the window of his Zurich studio. Accompanied by authentic answering machine messages from 1988 to 2003, a cinematic portrait of the invisible man behind the camera emerges. The combination of image and sound forms a fictional autobiography that addresses personal experiences such as birth, death, separation, and new beginnings, while at the same time painting a universal landscape of the soul. The film ...

I Was a Swiss Banker

I Was a Swiss Banker

2007 | 75 min | Romance

A man known only as a banker moves along the river Limmat in Zurich, drifting through the city and encountering a series of women. Each meeting takes on a different tone — sometimes seductive, sometimes enigmatic — gradually dissolving any clear distinction between reality, memory and imagination. As the journey unfolds, the encounters begin to feel less like chance meetings and more like fragments of a larger, elusive narrative. The river becomes a space of transition, where identities shift and ...

The Ground Beneath Their Feet

The Ground Beneath Their Feet

2007 | 20 min | Drama

Frido and his daughter Lisa live in one of the West German villages affected by the relocation efforts due to coal mining expansion in the region. The last family living in the deserted village, they will have to move soon. However, Frido is living in complete denial, clinging on to his home and the way life used to be for him there. Instead of planning the inevitable move, he redoes his front yard and puts a fresh coat of paint on his house that is inevitably to fall victim to the huge excavators ...

Happy Too

Happy Too

2002 | 61 min | Documentary

HAPPY TOO (2002) is an experimental documentary film by Swiss director Thomas Imbach, which functions both as a standalone work and as a meta-commentary on his previous feature film HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN (2001). While the previous film fictionalizes the tragic relationship between Green Party politician Petra Kelly and ex-general Gert Bastian, HAPPY TOO takes a look behind the scenes and highlights the dynamic between actors Linda Olsansky and Herbert Fritsch during filming. In HAPPY TOO, Imbach ...

Raju

Raju

2010 | 23 min | Drama

In this Oscar nominated short, a German couple, played by Wotan Wilke Möhring and Julia Richter, adopts an Indian orphan in Kolkata. On their way to the hotel, the boy disappears. The German officials have recommended a local Indian orphanage to them. There the four-year-old boy Raju, who comes from a slum, is introduced to them and handed over. When the boy suddenly disappears and the Indian police cannot get any further with their investigations, Jan himself starts an intensive search.

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

2001 | 90 min | Timeless

In the 1980s, Petra Kelly was a prominent figure in the Green Party and a passionate peace activist. Her tragic end came in 1992 when she was shot in her sleep by her partner, former German army general Gert Bastian, who then took his own life. Thomas Imbach's film HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN tells this story in an unusual way. The film does not begin with the lives of the protagonists, but with their deaths. Petra and Gert find themselves in a glass transit room in a modern airport – an artificial ...

Ghetto

Ghetto

1997 | 116 min | Timeless

A documentary about the everyday lives of Zurich's forgotten youth. The school janitor calls the classroom where Xhumi and Müke are spending the last few months of their school days “the biggest damn ghetto.” Ana's hands get sweaty when asked about her future career. Oli is already standing outside—on the street. The film was shot over a year at a secondary school in Zurich. In six chapters – “Ghetto,” “Car,” “Techno,” “Sex,” “Drugs,” and “Marroni” – a multi-layered portrait of growing up in an ...

1986

1986

2019 | 77 min | Drama

Elena is a student in Minsk making illegal deals in the Chernobyl death zone to save her father from going to prison. She is in an intense but increasingly destructive love affair with Viktor. When her father is arrested for illegal metal trading and tax evasion, in order to continue his business, she has to keep traveling to the Chernobyl restricted zone. She is fascinated by the deceptive beauty, but soon her life seems contaminated by a destructive force. "A very potent film, both dramaturgically ...

The Circle in Which She Travels

The Circle in Which She Travels

2010 | 25 min | Drama

19-year-old Luisa travels to Mexico to search for her Mexican roots, which her mother kept secret from her. She wants to find her grandfather, whom she has never met. All she knows is that he lived in a small mountain town in Mexico and that the name is “Villa”. What she doesn't know is that the famous Mexican revolutionary from 1910 has the same name and that every Mexican knows the name of the national hero. During her search, she meets a young man named Memo, who offers to help her. Torn between ...

Thirst for Life

Thirst for Life

2015 | 16 min | Drama

A bi-racial couple loses a baby in the fifth month of the pregnancy after getting attacked by a group of racists. They go through dark times but fight with their endless love to become happy again. Yaya, a pregnant white woman, has been attacked by two men. Her Black friend Emeka had to witness everything without being able to help. A third man pushed him to the ground and degraded him. Yaya loses the unborn. She falls into a pit of self-destruction and doubt. Will Emeka be able to catch her and ...