The Top of His Head(1989)

From August to October 1942, over 2250 Jews were deported from the internment camp of Rivesaltes to Auschwitz by way of Drancy. Among them were 110 children. Friedel Bohny-Reiter, a nurse with the Swiss Aid to Children, worked in this camp in the South of France. Like many others in the formerly unoccupied zone, it was run by the French. Once a military camp, it had been converted in 1941 into a transit camp regrouping Jewish, Gypsy and Spanish people living in the area or who had fled to the free zone as refugees. Thanks to the young nurse from Basel, many children were probably saved from certain death. The film follows the nurse on a visit to that still intact site as well as through the pages of the journal she wrote in those dark days, published by Editions Zoë, Geneva in 1993.

Zurich-born Hugo Koblet was the first international cycling star of the post-war period. He was a stylist on the bicycle and in life, and a huge heartthrob. Koblet had a meteoric rise and won the Giro d'Italia in 1950. Once he had reached the zenith of his career, Koblet was put under pressure by overly ambitious officials and ended up ruining his health with drugs. In 1954, he married a well-known model and they became a celebrity dream couple. After his athletic career ended, Koblet began to lose his footing. Threatened by bankruptcy, he crashed his Alfa into a tree.

Both aspire to remain true to themselves and to build their lives freely. This bold vision in the 1950s is that of Katharina von Arx and Freddy Drilhon, when they meet during a trip to Polynesia. A passionate love unites them; she becomes famous as a reporter and illustrator, and he as a photographer. When the couple settled with their daughter in Romainmôtier to turn the ruined priory into their new home, their relationship was put to the test. While Katharina put all her energy into restoring the impressive building, Freddy began to feel depressed in this remote village in the canton of Vaud. A serious crisis erupted between the two and they broke up. Freddy left Katharina to start a new life on the south coast of England—but the love that united them did not fade.

A 15 part film featuring scenes from Xianghe, running from the mundane to the surreal: people parade in opera costumes, slaughter pigs in public and dine on the fields; they bury the dead and get married, tickling the bride and groom, everything done without speech. Sitting somewhere between intimate personal reels and detached ethnographic records, the work creates a simultaneous sense of immersion and distance – of the type you might associate with end-of-life flashbacks. Yang gives nostalgia a fantastic, mystical bent, as if to suggest that to revel in memory is a creative act.

Two women and a man suffering from severe depression are accompanied by a camera for a year and a half. The acute phase of their depression is the starting point for this filmed account. How do they cope with their illness and their stay in hospital? How does their professional and family situation evolve after this major crisis? When do they feel cured again?

A recently released mental patient imagines himself living the lives of three different people he randomly encounters.