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2013

May 27, 2013 - Zurich

During a one day trip, Erika and Moritz attended a meeting with editor Anne Rüffer of Rüffer & Rub editions which plans to publish Christian Jungen’s book on their festival career. The manuscript due for publication in German in 2014 is however still miles away from completion. Star Swiss filmmaker Rolf Lissy (“The Swissmakers”, 1978) also attended the meeting.

May 15 to 26, 2013 - Cannes

For a second year in a row, the de Hadeln’s were a “no show” on the Croisette, a last minute decision motivated by the need to fulfill unforseen local obligations. It was for them a heartbreaking decision !

April 19-26, “Visions du Réel” (Nyon)

This year's “Visions du Réel” was a real success. Quality of the selection was good, but documentaries nowadays are no longer what they used to be: less political, less social denunciations, less pamphlets as if struggles were too complex to be filmed. In his third yeas as festival head, Barisone was like a fish in water, always present, always available. With 28'000 attending, a new public record was reached.

Martin Blaney wrote in ScreenDaily (“Swiss docs win at Nyon’s Visions du Réel” ,29 April, 2013): On the sidelines of Visions du Réel... ScreenDaily learnt that International Jury member, film critic Christian Jungen is preparing a biography on Moritz de Hadeln. Jungen told Screen that it is planned to launch the book at next year’s Nyon festival which will celebrate the 45th anniversary of its founding by de Hadeln in 1969. In an email, de Hadeln said that he and his wife Erika had agreed to Jungen’s proposal after reading his book on Hollywood in Cannes, which is shortly to be published in English.

“Since we agreed he has visited us many times digging into our private archive and taping quite a few interviews with us. He has also been talking to many people who knew us or worked with us and we helped him in Berlin to meet some of our former colleagues. But the task is arduous as it spreads on a long period of time, the Cold War period, and in many different countries and cultures. So he will need time to digest all this material and information he gathered before finishing the manuscript.” De Hadeln added that Jungen had gained access to “some rather unknown material and information that should make his book worth reading!”

March 26-28, Monte Verità (Locarno)

Moritz and Erika were invited to attend the workshop organized by the Locarno Film Festival on the theme “The image and the word” that took place in the prestigious Bauhaus building of Monte Verità, where in the late XIX century such artists as Hermann Hesse, Carl Gustav Jung, Hans Arp or Sophie Täuber debated... Moritz, together with the new festival director Carlo Chatrian, was part of a panel with filmmakers Richard Dindo (Switzerland) and Paolo Benvenuti (Italy), both presenting their new film projects and the difficulties they met in setting up their financing. Another panel was centred on the Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov. The venue was the occasion of many meetings with old and new friends and was attended by a large group of students.

March 6, Federal Archive (Bern)

The “Fichenaffäre” or “Secret Files Scandal” shook public opinion in Switzerland in 1989. That year (cf. Wikipedia), it was revealed that the Swiss federal authorities, as well as the cantonal police forces, had put in place a system of mass surveillance of the population and were secretly and illegally keeping some 900,000 files on both Swiss citizens and foreigners, targeting in particular Eastern European nationals, but also organizations, firms, and various political groups, mostly on the left. After the scandal was revealed, these files were transferred to the Swiss federal archives. Some 300,000 people have already requested to see their files and it was now time for Moritz and Erika to find out what was written on them, their visits to the Soviet or Chinese embassies in Bern or the screening of “suspicious” documentaries at their festival in Nyon, not to mention their visits to the Leipzig documentary film festival ! Cold War hysteria, not always accurate, but indeed fascinating. Next step for them will be the East German STASI archive !

January 25 to 29 – Solothurn

With a bitter cold weather, Erika and Moritz attended for three days the 48th Solothurner Filmtage (January 24th to 31st), the annual meeting of the Swiss cinema and its industries. It was, as usual, the occasion for them to meet old and new friends among which Hans Schlegel from Berlin and Christian Jungen – still struggling with his planned book on their festival career. One of the highlights of their stay was attending the award ceremony of the “Honour Prize” presented to Beki Probst for her long-standing contribution in promoting Swiss cinema not to mention her role as head of the Berlinale film market. Most noticed films were “Rosie” by Marcel Gisler, the already screened in Locarno «More Than Honey» by Markus Imhoof and «Der Imker» (“The Bee-Keeper”) by Mano Khalil. As usual documentary films dominated the selection.

2012

October 12, 2012 – Stockholm

This year's Nobel Prize in Literature went to Guan Moye, best known as Mo Yan. He is among other the author of the “Red Sorghum” novel (1978) that inspired Zhang Yimou's first feature, winner of the Berlin Golden Bear in 1988. This major festival award played a role in the following years in attracting attention for Chinese cinema. Head of the International Jury was the Italian critic Guglielmo Biraghi.

August 23 to 29, 2012 – Eisleben, Munich

What started as a private family gathering near Leipzig around a birthday anniversary ended up being an important gathering occasion culminating in Munich with a meeting with Christel Buschmann and Reinhard Hauff. Christian Jungen, who is writing a book of the de Hadeln's festival saga, made the trip to Munich to recollect past events from the Berlinale days. Christel Buschmann was also in charge of German films for the Venice and Montreal festivals. Christian Jungen's book, due to be finished by year's end, should be published sometime late 2013.

August 4 to 8, 2012 – Locarno

40 year ago when the de Hadelns headed the Ticino event, they were instruments in getting Catholics and Protestant to work together in an ecumenical jury. Since then, what started in Locarno has become tradition, not only in Locarno, but in most festivals around the world – with the exception of Venice too close to Rome. This anniversary was marked with a symposium, a reception and the screening of the first film ever to receive this award, the Polish film “Iluminacja” (1973). Krzysztof Zanussi, who at the time was not allowed to travel to a “western country” to attend the screening of his film, made the trip to Locarno. Then came the gorgeous celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Swiss film makers association ( ARF/FDS) with a spectacular party and a great occasion to meet old friends.

All observers were quite unanimous in praising Olivier Père for a very successful festival. Surprisingly, a few weeks later he was to resign to go on working for the television channel ARTE.

May to September, 2012 – Local politics

This first half of the year have been busy times for local politics. Early in the year the regional parliament in Lausanne stood for elections. The Greens were involved in supporting their candidates and mobilising the public. Then, on May 23, Gland hosted the General assembly of the Greens of the canton of Vaud and all the practical organisation of the event was left to us. On June 14, Moritz de Hadeln was re-elected chairman of the regional party and on June 21 he became vice-president of the city council in Gland, a step forward towards being elected next year's chairman. Meanwhile, on September 4, Gland paid tribute in full pomp to the newly elected president of the canton's parliament, Philippe Martinet, a Green from Gland. During a 500 guest gala dinner, Moritz was to address the audience with words of sympathy for the new president. He chose his Chinese horoscope as a touch of humour.

April 20 to 27, 2012 – Nyon

For the third year, the event was headed by Luciano Barisone. Chairman of the festival's organisation body is Claude Ruey, son of the former president of the event in the 70s when the de Hadelns were in charge. Playing on the new name of the event, “Visions du Reel”, for a long period the organisers tried to ignore the past history of the event. This seems no longer to be the case, even if we still hope the festival website will once include a list of all the documentaries showed there since 1969 – an invaluable reference instrument for researchers. This year's event, plebiscited by the local public, offered many highlights. Our attention was particularly caught by Peter Entell's latest work “A Home far Away” on the Snow family. Edgar Snow, Mao's biographer, was our guest at the festival in 1969.

February 23 to March 2, 2012 – Khanty Mansiysk

This was the 10th anniversary of the Siberian event, some 2500 miles North East of Moscow. For the second time we were invited to Khanty Mansiysk, initially as guests but then at the last moment Moritz was asked to join again the international jury, headed by the Georgian veteran Rezo Chkheidze, with as members Peggy Chiao, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson and the young Russian director Slava Ross who had won the award the previous year with “Siberia, mon amour”. We almost missed the cold weather, temperatures not going below minus 20 – last time it was minus 30 ! The jury unanimously gave its first prize to “Journey to Portugal” by Sergio Trefaut. At the closing ceremony Moritz de Hadeln paid tribute on stage to Sergey Solovyov, Maria Zvereva and Andrei Plakhov the organizing troika without whom this original event would have nether existed.

January 22 to 25, 2012 – Solothurn

It is always a pleasure returning to the roots. In spite of the winter weather, the Soloturn Film days – the annual Swiss film show, belong to those events that made history when Swiss cinema emerged and caught international attention. Well organized, not like its early editions in the 60s, it still remains a focus point as showcase of new productions and a meeting point for film politics. This year was also the launch pad for the 50th anniversary of the Swiss film-makers association (ARF/FDS) to be further marked in other film events during the year. Sadly some of its founders, such as Alain Tanner or Alexander Seiler, did not attend, so Rolf Lyssy and Moritz de Hadeln ended up by being the “older” members present.