Roger Jendly

Spy, Stand Up

Sebastien Grenier, a former French spy, is working as a financial analyst in Zurich. However, his peaceful existence starts to disintegrate when he is recruited by a top French intelligence operative to discover how one of their own secret agents was found out and executed in broad daylight.

C'est pas tout à fait la vie dont j'avais rêvé

A comedy. The husband, the wife, the mistress and the housekeeper. A Fable. The ape, the lion and the little boy.

The Savage Woman

Marianne, a young Canadian nurse living as an expatriate in Switzerland, is traumatized by a violent incident and becomes lost in the Alps. In time, a Swiss engineer working in the mountains discovers her; he gives her a place to stay and slowly gains her trust as she regains her health. However, he soon discovers she's wanted by the law, and circumstances become difficult for him as he tries to hide her from the authorities.

Trapped by Cops

The robberies are becoming more and more brazen, the methods more and more brutal. Because the perpetrator wears bizarre masks, there is no analyzable personal description. The homicide squad is assigned a bloody novice. The gangster slyly exploits this weakness. He sets his stunning girlfriend on him and blackmails him into complicity. An oil sheik's luxury yacht docks in the harbor. From all over the world, the head gamblers are expected with pockets full of money for a hot night of gambling. The planning for the super coup is ready. The best specialists are hired.

Young Girls in Black

Noémie and Priscilla, two teenagers from a modest background, nurture the same violence, the same revolt. They seriously worry their families, who feel that these girls are capable of anything...

The Woman from Rose Hill

Julie is a young woman from Rose Hill who arrives in rural Switzerland to marry her older pen-friend Marcel. She feels unhappy until she meets Jean, a younger man. However, his father disagrees.

Every Man for Himself

A look at the sexual and professional lives of three people — a television director, his ex-girlfriend, and a sex worker.

Vent de galerne

The year 1989 marked the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, and a number of filmmakers put together movies intended to celebrate that event. This historical action drama, based on the book Sous le vent de galerne by Andre Guilloteau looks at some of the less well-known and unappealing consequences of the republican takeover. In 1793, the entire region of Vendee rose up in revolt against the republican French government. Instead of bringing relief from the heavy taxation imposed under the monarchy, the republican government actually raised taxes in the region, and to add insult to injury, also imposed a heavy burden of military conscription ("the draft") on it. In the story, the inhabitants of one of the villages of the region organize under their blacksmith and a local nobleman to fight the government forces, but before they can prepare for a proper battle, they are massacred.

Faces of Love

After 10 years separation from his wife, a film director (Jean-Louis Trintignant), imagines he can make up with her by giving her a part in his next film, an adaptation of Tshekov's "Three Sisters". He goes location scouting and stays in Bex, a Spa near Lake Leman, together with the three actresses : Julie, his ex-wife (Delphine Seyrig), the mysterious Cecilia, that his producer wants him to take (Lea Massari), and Esther (Valérie Mairesse), a teenager. They all stay in an old decaying hotel. In this isolated mansion the four of them will fight but also discover each other.

Le Cimetière des durs

Criminals Rayner and Simon organize a diamond heist, but are outsmarted by Jean and Rémy, two aspiring crooks.

Le Bunker

A man is consumed by an increasingly all-consuming madness that drives him to identify with Adolf Hitler. His insanity pushes him to physically imitate the dictator, and even to build a bunker with the intention of spending the rest of his days there...

Akropolis Now

Two friends drive through the Balkans in two American cars to sell them in Cairo. At times, their friendship is put to the test when a woman they have taken with them tries to exploit them for her own "business" purposes.

Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000

A look at the lives of several men and women in their 30s as they confront the slim gains of the "revolutionary" sixties. Max, a dissatisfied copy editor; Myriam, a redhead into tantric sex; and Marie, a supermarket checker who gives unauthorized discounts to the elderly, search for renewed meaning on a communal farm. The title character, a six-year-old child, is the carrier of their hopes for the future.

Second Death of Gregor Z

A former Yugoslav resistance fighter, Gregor Zidar, resurfaces in his old village in 1986, where locals have long believed him dead after his heroic act of saving hostages in 1944. Instead of gratitude, he faces cold suspicion and outright rejection.

La Beauté sur la terre

Coming to live with her uncle in the canton of Vaud after the death of her father, a pretty 17-year-old woman of mixed race turns men's heads.

Adam et Ève

Returning from work, Louis finds a letter from his wife saying their marriage is over. He’s just lost his mother, and now he’s lost his wife as well. Shaken, he tries to understand: why the illness? Why the separation?

The Death of Mario Ricci

A TV reporter and his assisstant go to a small Swiss village to do a programme with a reclusive scientist, an expert on world food shortages. During this time, an Italian immigrant worker is killed in a road crash and the reporter becomes involved in uncovering the truth about his death.

The Middle of the World

Paul is married, a successful engineer, and a conservative candidate in an upcoming local election. He falls in love with Adriana, a café waitress from Italy. Paul's party is very critical of foreign labour and wants to keep Switzerland to the Swiss. Where Paul falls deeper and deeper into the relationship and is ready to leave his wife, Adriana feels the social pressure growing and has to make her own decision.

Kill Hitler

This 140-minute documentary takes a close look at the story and historical context of a young Swiss man who was beheaded during WW II for supposedly wanting to kill Hitler. The man's family cannot help clarify the issue since they say he had been pro-Nazi earlier. Other injustices or puzzling omissions come to the fore, such as a German who was against Hitler, survived torture by the SS, and then was not given any state aid when peace was restored. Another sequence shows an extensive U.S. archive of materials that identifies many Nazis and their activities -- but is not available to anyone trying to track down former war criminals. Like other films of this type, the documentary helps to fill in facts about WW II that are little-known, or slow in coming out.

The Murdered House

After World War I, a young ex-soldier, Sébastien Monge, returns to his home village. Ignorant of his past, he learns that, 24 years before, his entire family was slain in their home one stormy night. Only Sébastien, then a four-month old baby, was spared. Whilst Sébastien is being seduced by Charmaine, Dupin is killed by someone else. Sébastien’s next victim, the miller Didon Pujol, is also murdered before he has a chance to take his revenge. Sébastien realises that someone is watching his every move and is going to extraordinary lengths to protect him. But who, and why..?

Tinou

Abstinence leads to suffering, falling off the wagon means death. Tinou must adhere to a strict regimen to qualify as a recipient of a new liver. Aschi is also suffering: from the lacklustre present, which seems to render his brilliant past all the more magnificent. But he retrieves the past in a letter from South Africa.

My New Partner II

The partners are back and are in a tight spot! Francois is going through a moral crisis, and Rene is experiencing the same. But, honesty is not always the best policy. After being suspended for their actions, they return to face their far more crooked replacements.

Alzire or the New Continent

A theatrical group prepare Voltaire’s play “Alzire”. From this the ideas of Voltaire are examined as they relate to the present day political situation.

The Extradition

Throughout the late 19th century and in the early part of the 20th, Russians of a wide variety of political persuasions contemplated various forms of revolution. Throughout the same period, they often had to seek asylum in other countries. This movie concerns Sergei (Roger Jendly), a revolutionary who kills a student in Russia and flees to Switzerland. Though he has the gifts and abilities to unify various revolutionary groups within Russia, once he has been forced to flee, they have no interest in him. When his presence in Switzerland threatens a trade agreement with the Tsar, he is tracked down and expelled.

Le passe-muraille

Emile Dutilleul, 47 years old, lives a quiet and withdrawn life in Montmartre and works as an employee in an open-plan office with an insurance company. When he meets his new, lively colleague Ariane, Emile discovers not only his inner life, but also something monstrous. He has a superpower of which he had no idea: he can walk through walls ...

TransAtlantique

On the last voyage of the Italian ocean liner EUGENIO C. from Genoa to Rio de Janeiro, Zurich-based ethnologist Roger Wiedmer meets Brazilian Zaira Gelbert. He wants to repeat the journey to the Indians of the Amazon described by Claude Lévy-Strauss in "Tristes Tropiques" some forty years later and begins with the first chapter: "La fin des voyages." Zaira Gelbert returns to her roots in her homeland after a two-year stay in Europe. The love story between the two—which lasts the eleven days of the crossing—becomes a dialogue between two cultures. The encounter with Zaira opens Roger's eyes. Now he perceives the sea, the ship, and above all the passengers with their stories. He meets emigrants, poets, first-class passengers, tourists, crew members, priests. A stowaway is also traveling with them.

Matlosa

A Canton Ticino family goes up for the weekend to the house in the mountains where the father spent his childhood. The journey to the valley, suffered at intervals by his wife and children, is an obsessive ritual for Alfredo, repeated week after week as he searches for his past.

Maman

Lulu is released from prison. Determined to fulfill her dream, find her kids, those of her best friend who remained locked up and go very far. The former inmate will do everything to carry out the "heist" that will get her the money.

Fluchtgefahr

The 23-year-old Bruno accidentally clashes with society, the judicial and the police. Once he has exceeded the legal limits, he is stuck to the wrong side of the law.

Pestalozzi's Mountain

In the 1770s, Swiss farmer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi established a school for poor orphaned children in the Aargau. Up to total exhaustion he sacrificed himself for his pedagogical theories. Five years later, the project of the idealistic educator failed after bloody attacks of the French. In retrospect, the disappointed Pestalozzi experiences the last few months with "his" children.

The Black Beach

An exhausted militant wants to take a break from the incessant frenzy surrounding him. His country’s dictatorship is on its last legs and chaos reigns. His wife Sylvie leaves their country for France. She writes about the new democracy struggling to be born back home. His daughter Joyce must hide out in the deserted childhood home in the solitude and infinity of the Black Beach. Several adversaries – the militia of a hazy regime in his native land and the Paris police – wage a strange game of chess in which he is the pawn. Threats abound and he’s haunted by his past, his fears, dead friends. He has three allies: his wife, his daughter, and an old girlfriend from his fighting days.

Alors voilà,

A trucker, an accountant, a former plumber hospitalised after a suicide attempt... Presided over by the accountant, the three families decide to buy a truck, a trucker's dream. The father, practical joker, and larger-than-life lover, keeps a watchful eye. The children are his accomplices. One is his heroine. His daughter is his other heroine. A puzzle of life's desires in which all veers into the imaginary, into dreams of far-off lands.

No Man's Land

Madeleine, who runs a disco on the French-Swiss border, dreams of going to Paris to pursue a singing career. Her lover, Paul, who makes his living smuggling money, gold and goods across the border, plans to emigrate to Canada. Mali, a pretty young Algerian woman who lives in France and works in Switzerland, would like to be anywhere except where she is. Louis, born on a Swiss farm and trained as a clockmaker, would give anything to leave his mistress, Lucie, and move in with Mali.

Return from Africa

A young Swiss couple, Vincent and Françoise, plan to leave Geneva and settle in Africa: a friend of theirs living in Algeria promises to give them a job there.

Tauwetter

Unrelenting snowstorms cut off a mountain village from the outside world before tourists and a group of soldiers with their sick horses escape from the valley. The first avalanche has buried the road and railroad tracks. People and livestock crowd into the few houses that are still safe and the undersized hotel. Manfred and Jutta, who have been vacationing here with their seven-year-old child, have to give up their child's room for evacuees. In the tension of this first night, when they cannot avoid each other, accusations that have long remained unspoken erupt between them. Embittered, Manfred goes so far as to provoke Jutta into having an affair and is shocked when she does not defend herself more vigorously. Hurt and curious, she allows herself to be seduced by a French-speaking soldier.

The River That Carries Us Along

Following a bet, Simon has no choice but to participate in the Morat-Fribourg race. The preparation and the race itself reveal painful memories that have been buried for far too long.