Grischun
A five-part, short documentary series: a living archive of identity, memory, and place through moving image, writing and sound.
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Grischun is a cinematic exploration of Romansh identity in the high Alpine landscapes of southeastern Switzerland.
Through intimate portraits of individuals whose lives remain intertwined with the land, the film reveals a culture that speaks not only through words, but through gesture, craft, and rhythm.
To learn more, view the project overview. For more information or to support the project, feel free to reach out through the contact form.
Supported by:
GKB, Forum Engadin
Fexer
In the remote Val Fex, a blacksmith forges knives inspired by the mountains that shaped his family for generations — as the valley around him is quietly transformed.
Roger Rominger is a knifemaker and farmer in Val Fex, Switzerland. His family has lived and worked here for generations.
Poetically narrated in his mother tongue, addressed to the valley itself, Fexer follows Roger across the seasons of a year — through the forge and the barn, the Chalandamarz festival, the high alp where his family has etched their names into soapstone for generations, and the world beyond the valley where he sells his handmade knives in St Moritz.
The glacier on his favourite mountain shrinks a little every year. The farmhouses are becoming holiday properties. Roger notices all of this the way a craftsman notices wear in a tool — not with alarm, but with the particular attention of someone who understands that things change through use, and that the response to change is to keep working.
A film by Adrian Howell. Original score by Lorenz Weber.
To learn more, view the treatment here. For more information or to support the project, feel free to reach out through the contact form.
Supported by:
Lia Rumantscha, Gemeinde Sils/Segl, Pro Fex, Kulturstiftung St. Moritz, Repower & Biblioteca Engiadinaisa.
Traunter Ovas
A young farmer in Sils Maria prepares to inherit the land his family built over three generations. As the seasons turn, the film watches what that inheritance is made of — in work, in risk, and in relationship to place.
Adriano Coretti names every calf. He maintains the decorative detail on his carriages with the same care he gives to his chainsaws. He speaks about his horses in a register akin to family.
He is not a romantic figure standing outside the modern economy — he logs timber in one of Switzerland's most dangerous occupations, sells his labour, and appears to love it.
This is a portrait of a young man on the threshold of inheritance — of land, of animals, of a language — and a patient study of what it means to choose, in full knowledge of the alternatives, to stay.
A film by Adrian Howell. Original score by Lorenz Weber.
To learn more, view the treatment. For more information or to support the project, feel free to reach out through the contact form.