Life of Guangzhou - Swiss Film Week at Sapphire Art Space

Thinking of Switzerland, people will evoke images of snow-covered mountains, the renowned watch and clock industry, the UN-located in Geneva, the Olympic Games Committee-located in Lausanne and the world's financial center in Zurich. [2008 Sapphire Moving Image Salon Schedule]

Recently a Chinese film delegation's visited to the country to draw attention to its film industry. The annual Switzerland International Film Festival has over 60-years history. The artistic atmosphere of the country fuels the passion of film makers.

Swiss Film Week organized by the Swiss Consulate in Guangzhou, Sapphire Art Space and China (Guangzhou) Documentary Film Festival will be launched at the Sapphire Art Space on May 18. According to the organizers, the event is expected to strengthen communication between the two countries through film.

The launch ceremony will be on May 18 with three Swiss films by Swiss directors.

Introduction to the films

Zum Abschied Mozart
15:00 2008.5.18

The story happens when students at a high school class are going to graduate in six months. To celebrate their time together over the past 12 years, they prepare a performance of W. A. Mozart's Requiem. The film showcases the world of the life of youth in Zurich's "Oberland" region: they are living in a world of skating, drugs and flamenco. They have hopes for the future, but simultaneously hold fears and feel uncertainty. The film also depicts a world of hardship in classical music practice in modern society.

Building the Gherkin
19:30 2008.5.18

Just a month and a day after the disastrous attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the first steel beam of a new tower was erected in London. One question was on everybody's lips: is it the right decision to build a new iconic tower in the midst of London's financial district, on a site that has already been bombed before? The 40-storey steel and glass tower sparked controversy. Norman Foster, one of Britain's most visionary architects, called his design for the new Swiss Re London Headquarters "radial – socially, technically, architecturally and spatially". In fact, its size and shape were so radical that it was immediately nicknamed “the erotic gherkin”. Will the Gherkin become the landmark they all dream?

Henri Cartier-Bresson
21:15 2008.5.18

The intense vitality and presence of Cartier-Bresson's recollections bear eloquent testimony to his impassioned eye. An incomparable visual journey traces half a century of photographic assimilation of the world, exploring entire continents and introducing us to people who's often delightfully humorous portraits by Cartier-Bresson are frequently as famous as the sitters themselves. Actress Isabelle Huppert, playwright Arthur Miller, publisher Robert Delpire and the photographers Elliott Erwitt, Josef Koudelka and Ferdinando Scianna present their own very personal views on Cartier-Bresson as a friend and photographer.

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