For the second consecutive year, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is a partner of the two-day Swiss Cinema Weekend, which this time is titled Swiss Lessons. Introducing the viewer to new releases from Switzerland’s box office, it also screens award-winning pictures selected from the programs of national and international festivals from past seasons.
In a country where four official languages and several dozens of national minorities co-exist with each other and where citizens care about regional diversity, there is an understanding that people should be different, and it is even a very good thing. But still, just as anywhere else, the relationships with minorities are not always perfect. Yenish Sounds is a film about the Yenish people—Swiss nomads who speak their own language, similar to some Swiss and German dialects, and who have received official “national minority” status following years of discrimination. Switzerland now promises to take care and preserve the Yenish language and culture. One of the country’s most popular musicians, loved and honored by the people, Stephan Eicher, a friend of Goran Bregovic and Philippe Djian, is of Yenish descent.
The second film to be screened at Garage is At the Philosophers’ School dedicated to another group represented in the Swiss society—children with learning disabilities. This documentary demonstrates how it is possible to help such children and why it is important that society not just acknowledges them but also engages in intercommunication.
In Switzerland, solutions to many problems come as a result of what the Verdeil Foundation has defined as “an art of meeting, hosting, mutual care, and respect”, since it is only possible to expect a positive contribution of each and every citizen into a powerful civil society in the circumstances of transparency and respect for the other.
