OUTLAND

by Michael Schindelm

HD, color, 88', 2021

co-production with RSI Radiotelevisione Svizzera Italiana

original version: english, german, italian subtitles: english, german

The starting point of the documentary is the conviction of the author (a citizen of Ticino since 15 years) that the landscape between St. Gotthard and Chiasso still represents a magical parallel world, a land that inspires, welcomes, and even protects those who come to live their lives on their own terms.  

Reconnecting to the life in Ticino of Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings – the founders of Dadaism – the film focuses on some of those who in recent years have arrived in Ticino and decided to stay, walking the thin line between breaking or making it. 

They are a dancer from Siberia who integrates shamanic practices into her craft. A Kurdish bus driver who translates Machiavelli’s “The Prince” into his mother tongue. An Iraqi artist and his dead brothers. A teacher from Transylvania, and her Californian husband who has been writing a book for twenty years. A painter with Taiwanese roots, who reminds her husband of a wisteria. Just like Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings, the founders of Dada, they were all inextricably drawn to Ticino, yet never quite settled… In Outland.