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Irène Schweizer

By

Gitta Gsell

Music is and has always been Irene Schweizer’s whole life, a film portrait of the great Swiss pianist with insights into her life.

Documentary

Cinema

75

Min.

Format

35mm, Digi Beta, DVD

Sound

Stereo

Country

Switzerland

Languages

Swiss-German, German, English

Subtitles

German, English

Synopsis

Music is and has always been Irene Schweizer’s whole life. In her film, Gsell gets some rare one-to-one time with the internationally renowned Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer, whose music has roots in Jazz and improvisational music. The film gives a fascinating insight into the life of a great artist.

Music is and always has been Irene Schweizer’s whole life. In her film, Gsell gets some rare one-to-one time with the internationally renowned Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer, whose music has roots in Jazz and improvisational music. The film gives a fascinating insight into the life of a great artist, where friendship and relationships always take second place to the music, shunted between foreign tour dates and rehearsals, between inspiration and creation. Music has inspired Schweizer to great heights, sometimes followed by deep loneliness. However, Schweizer’s grand piano – her partner – is always there for her.


There it stands – the grand piano – waiting for her. For a woman who has referred to the piano as her companion for over 40 years, has shared happiness and sadness with it, was inspired by it and who has lived this inspiration to the fullest with it. Seldom has she had an affair with another – and if so, then with the drums. Friendships and relationships “played second fiddle” to music, were cultivated between appointments abroad, rehearsals, somewhere between inspiration and creation. It was always music that inspired her to soar to the heights, sometimes followed by the deepest sense of loneliness. Music was and is her life.

I’m not exactly sure when I heard Irene play for the first time. I only remember how delighted and enthusiastic I was. In the Swiss Jazz scene, she is an exception – as an instrumentalist. In the Fifties women were mainly singers, but even as a young woman, Irene had already been awarded first prize as a pianist at the Amateur Jazz Festival in Zurich. The atmosphere in the smoky Jazz locales of the Fifties and Sixties, the political change in the air in ’68 and the Women’s Lib Movement in the Eighties fascinated me. Irene improvised on the piano: elbows hammering and dragging along the keys, fingers pecking and darting over them. Pulling and plucking the strings inside the piano.


With a biography and an alternative lifestyle like hers, Irene is an exception in Switzerland. As a woman working in a creative area myself, she both interested me and inspired me to make this film. A good ten years older than I am, she is for me a forerunner of the Women’s Liberation Movement and one of the very few female figures in the Swiss creative scene – 63 years old, with her musical roots in Jazz and, in the meantime, avidly involved in and internationally renowned for her Instant Composing and her improvised music.


Gitta Gsell

Crew

Director

Gitta Gsell

Script

Gitta Gsell

director of photography

Hansueli Schenkel

Music

Irène Schweizer

Sound

Dieter Meyer

Editing

Kamal Musale

Picture Design

Producer

Franziska Reck

More Crew Members

Original Composer

Irène Schweizer, Hamid Drake, Fred Anderson, Louis Moholo, Pierre Favre, Co Streiff, Jöelle Léandre, Maggie Nicols, Han Bennink

Cast

No items found.

Jöelle Léandre

Han Bennink

Maggie Nicols

Co Streiff

Pierre Favre

Louis Moholo

Irène Schweizer

Festivals

2005

27. Festival Internacional Del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano

Havanna

Cuba

2006

41. Solothurner Filmtage

Solothurn

Switzerland

2006

Febiofest Musics

Prag

Czech

2006

Interplay!

Free Jazz & Improvisation in Film, Kunst & Konzert

Berlin

Germany

2006

MOFFOM

Music on Film – Film on Music

Prag

Czech

2006

St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival

Newfoundland

Canada

2007

33. Internationales Filmwochenende Würzburg

Würzburg

Germany

2007

25th International Festival of Films on Art FIFA

Montréal

Canada

Awards

No items found.

Filmstills

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