Say God Bye
2023 | 119 min | Documentary
A forty-year obsession with Jean-Luc Godard propels Thomas Imbach on a pilgrimage to meet the “God of cinema”.
Thomas Imbach
ActorDirectorThomas Imbach is a Swiss director known for his work in both feature films and documentaries. Some of his notable works include "Ghetto" (2006), "Mary Queen of Scots" (2013), and "Day Is Done" (2011). He has received critical acclaim for his unique visual style and storytelling approach. While there isn't a comprehensive list of awards publicly available, Imbach has been recognized at various film festivals for his contributions to cinema.
Films
Nemesis
2020 | 131 min | Documentary
The freight yard is making way for a prison: a place of mobility is becoming a place of stagnation.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
2001 | 90 min | Timeless
Green Party icon Petra Kelly is shot in her sleep by her partner Gert Bastian, an ex-Federal Armed Forces general, before he kills himself.
Lenz
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.
I Was a Swiss Banker
2007 | 75 min | Romance
A banker smuggling black money catapults himself out of his old life with a dip into the cold lake water.
Ghetto
1997 | 116 min | Timeless
A touching documentary about the everyday life of Zurich's forgotten youth.
Happy Too
2002 | 61 min | Documentary
A raw, honest look at the relationship between filmmakers, actors, and the characters they jointly create.
My Brother, My Love
2018 | 114 min | Drama
Lena (16) is in love with her brother and would rather indulge in this fantasy than face reality.
Day Is Done
2011 | 111 min | Documentary
A 35mm camera films from a window, with messages from the answering machine in the background. Slowly an imaginary biography unfolds.
Well Done
1994 | 73 min | Timeless
The world we have just entered resembles a futurist machine. It is a colossus of concrete and glass, with a computer heart heart deep inside.
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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 ...
Becoming Outline
2024 | 70 min | Documentary
Without allowing the most personal aspects to devolve into narcissistic introspection, Becoming Outline develops a cinematic form that reflects on class, nation and gender as fundamental dimensions of lived experience, socialization and self-constitution. Starting from an autobiographical art project, Miriam Bajtala reconstructs her life through the floor plans of the eighteen apartments she has lived in. These spaces become a kind of spatial biography — a “curriculum vitae” shaped by migration, ...
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 ...
Well Done
1994 | 73 min | Timeless
In a high-tech company, over 1,200 people are busy checking the billions of Swiss francs that flow through the country every day in the form of endless data streams. From the mass of employees—absorbed by the labyrinthine building, overwhelmed by avalanches of language—individual figures emerge: the gold card clerk, the product manager, the department head, the PC support technician, the key account manager, the director. The camera follows their inconspicuous gestures, ways of speaking, and glances. ...
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 ...
Lenz
2006 | 93 min | Drama
Filmmaker Lenz leaves his hometown of Berlin to explore the background of Georg Büchner's fragment “Lenz” in the Vosges mountains. But soon he exchanges the Alsatian landscape for higher altitudes and more emotional terrain: driven by the desire to see his son Noah, he sets off for the winter sports resort of Zermatt in the Swiss Alps. There, with Noah's help, he arranges a meeting with his ex-wife Natalie, whom he still loves. A small idyll blossoms in the rediscovered closeness to his son and in ...
Lord of the Toys
2018 | 96 min | Documentary
Max "Adlersson" Herzberg from Dresden, 20 years old, has decided not to spend his life working. On YouTube, he reviews knives and gangsta rap special editions. More than 300,000 active fans follow Adlersson and his "Pfandangels" posse, who excel at boozing, trash-talking, humiliating those weaker than themselves, and testing limits. Is Max a violence-glorifying influencer with right-wing tendencies or maybe just an ordinary adolescent in search of stability and identity in a time when the lines ...
The Net
2003 | 121 min | Documentary
Between 1978 and 1995, a series of bombings convulse the United States. The targets of the letter and pipe bombs are managers of major airlines, scientists from various elite universities and technology companies. The trail of attacks finally leads to Ted Kaczynski, a brilliant but reclusive former math professor who, under the pseudonym Unabomber, formulates a radical critique of technological development. Why does a scientist become a terrorist? The search for an answer leads into the past: from ...
Asche
2024 | 87 min | Drama
A complex dynamic exists between muse and artist – one that is often characterized by dependency and exploitation. In a world where inspiration and ownership claims merge, power games, artistic craving for recognition and the longing for authenticity unfold. What happens when someone is no longer satisfied with the role they have been assigned? Elena Wolff's ASHES delves into these entanglements and uses black humor to expose the abysses of a self-centered art world. In the midst of this search ...
By My Side
2024 | 24 min | Drama
In the streets of Paris, we accompany two people who actually wanted to say goodbye long ago. Exhale, inhale, exhale. “Is it starting?” – this is how a journey through a day begins that is both farewell and realization. Jana has just undergone a medically induced termination, Aaron is withdrawing. His exchange year is ending, he is leaving. A lost wallet becomes the last excuse to avoid a meeting – but Jana is not willing to be driven away. She insists on accompanying him on a search through the ...