Join us for a special encounter with two rising Swiss filmmakers, Zoel Aeschbacher and Rolf Hellat. Though they have never met, their works already resonate with one another. Fascinated by group dynamics, both directors explore the fragile balance between individuals and collectives, oscillating between raw realism and the poetry of everyday life. In Fairplay, play and competition become reflections of a society in which honour must be preserved at all costs. In Dirt Devil 550 XS, power relations and latent tensions within communal living come to the surface, as a seemingly trivial decision spirals out of control. Trapped in a stalled elevator, the true face of a community is revealed in Bonobo. With Déjà Nu, this reflection takes on a more poetic tone, opening a window onto a society in miniature. During this lively screening-discussion, Zoel Aeschbacher and Rolf Hellat will reflect on the artistic, social, and cinematic questions that shape their work and drive their creative process.

Biography Zoel Aeschbacher
Born in Paris in 1993, Zoel Aeschbacher is a Swiss-Vietnamese filmmaker who was drawn at an early age to the short films of the Kourtrajmé collective. As a teenager, he began experimenting with a DV camera before completing a bachelor’s degree in film at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) in 2017. His film Bonobo (2017) won both the Audience Award at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and the Student Academy Award. His later work, Fairplay (2022), received the Junior Jury Prize in the Pardi di Domani section at the Locarno Film Festival. He is currently developing his first feature film, Underdog.

Biography Rolf Hellat
A graduate of the Zurich University of the Arts, Rolf Hellat has established himself as both a director and editor in fiction and documentary cinema. His films have been screened internationally, including at Palm Springs and the Venice Film Festival. Exploring everyday conflicts as reflections of broader social tensions, his work focuses on human relationships in all their complexity. He is currently developing several projects, including the KY documentary series, the feature film Meinetwegen, and the experimental short On the Edge of Your Senses.

* Screened as part of a double feature with the Arts & Essai program