Quartz 2015: The Swiss Awards Celebrate Docu-drama DER KREIS

Since 1998, the Swiss Film Awards -- the Quartz -- have been celebrating the Swiss film industry. The 18th ceremony took place in Geneva on the Friday 13th, with awards in 11 different categories.

Stefan Haupt was certainly the big winner of the event, as his film Der Kreis won Best Film and Best Script, but also Best Actor (Sven Schelker) and Best Performance in a Supporting Role (Peter Jecklin). Mixing archive footage, interviews and fictional reconstructions, Der Kreis deals with the real lives of Ernst Ostertag and Röbi Rapp, two lovers who fought for LGTBQ rights.

As the film works better in its documentary dimension rather than in its failed fictional attempts, its huge success at Quartz feels a bit paradoxical. Sven Schelker's Best Actor award was however fully deserved, since he delivers an amazing performance (pictured above), as was evidenced by being selected as one of the Shooting Stars at the last Berlinale. Der Kreis was the Swiss entry for the 2015 Academy Awards.

Marcel Gisler's Electroboy won Best Documentary and Best Editing. The film, which recalls the eccentric life of Florian Burkhardt, premiered at the Semaine de la Critique of Locarno in August 2014.

After L'Amour, l'argent, l'amour (2001) and Nebenwirkungen (2008), Sabine Timoteo won Best Actress for the third time with her performance in Driften. During her speech, Timoteo reminded the audience that Swiss cinema does exist and that people need to go to the theater in order to support it. This remark is far from being useless as very few local films manage to reach 5,000 admissions. In 2014, only one Swiss film made the local top-50 box office (Der Goalie bin ig, the 2014 Quartz winner).

Christophe M. Saber took the Best Short Film award for Discipline, which is having a very successful festival run since its premiere at TIFF. The short was produced by Box Productions, who also worked on Mathieu Urfer's Pause. The latter won Best Film Score (Mathieu Urfer, Marcin de Morsier, John Woolloff, Ariel Garcia).

The Best Animated Short Quartz went to Nils Hedinger's Timber, an amazing yet cruel depiction of cannibalism, with small logs having to burn one another as they slowly freeze in the middle of the forest.

Jean-Luc Godard was awarded with an honorary Quartz. Due to physical issues, the famous director was unfortunately unable to attend the event but still recorded a video to thank the Swiss Film Academy. Godard did not disappoint with this 4-minute clip as he filmed himself lying down in his living room, mumbling odd things and smoking a cigar (you can check the non-subtitled video at the bottom of the article).

Below is the list of all the nominees, with the winners in bold:

Best Fiction Film
DER KREIS, Stefan Haupt, Contrast Film Zürich
BOUBOULE, Bruno Deville, CAB Productions SA
CHRIEG, Simon Jaquemet, Hugofilm Productions GmbH
DORA ODER DIE SEXUELLEN NEUROSEN UNSERER ELTERN, Stina Werenfels, Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion AG
PAUSE, Mathieu Urfer, Box Productions

Best Documentary Film
ELECTROBOY, Marcel Gisler, Langfilm
IRAQI ODYSSEY, Samir, Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion AG
TABLEAU NOIR, Yves Yersin, Ateliers MERLIN Sàrl
THULETUVALU, Matthias von Gunten, HesseGreutert Film AG
YALOM'S CURE, Sabine Gisiger, Das Kollektiv für audiovisuelle Werke GmbH

Best Short Film
DISCIPLINE, Christophe M. Saber, Box Productions
EN AOÛT, Jenna Hasse, Galão com Açúcar
LA PETITE LEÇON DE CINÉMA: LE DOCUMENTAIRE, Jean‐Stéphane Bron, Milos-Films SA
PETIT HOMME, Jean‐Guillaume Sonnier, Casa Azul Films
TIŠINA MUJO, Ursula Meier, Bande à part Films

Best Animation Short Film
TIMBER, Nils Hedinger, prêt-à-tourner Filmproduktion GmbH
AUBADE, Mauro Carraro, Nadasdy Film
MESSAGES DANS L'AIR, Isabelle Favez, Nadasdy Film

Best Screenplay
DER KREIS (Stefan Haupt, Christian Felix, Ivan Madeo, Urs Frey), Contrast Film Zürich
BOUBOULE (Antoine Jaccoud, Bruno Deville), CAB Productions SA
DORA ODER DIE SEXUELLEN NEUROSEN UNSERER ELTERN (Stina Werenfels, Boris Treyer), Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion AG

Best Actress
Sabine Timoteo, in DRIFTEN
Ursina Lardi, in UNTER DER HAUT
Sylvie Marinkovic, in CURE - THE LIFE OF ANOTHER

Best Actor
Sven Schelker, in DER KREIS
Baptiste Gilliéron, in PAUSE
Benjamin Lutzke, in CHRIEG

Best Performance in a Supporting Role
Peter Jecklin, in DER KREIS
Nils Althaus, in PAUSE
Ella Rumpf, in CHRIEG

Best Film Score
PAUSE (Mathieu Urfer, Marcin de Morsier, John Woolloff, Ariel Garcia)
DORA ODER DIE SEXUELLEN NEUROSEN UNSERER ELTERN (Peter Scherer)
ELECTROBOY (Balduin)
YALOM'S CURE (Balz Bachmann)

Best Cinematography
CHRIEG (Lorenz Merz)
DORA ODER DIE SEXUELLEN NEUROSEN UNSERER ELTERN (Lukas Strebel)
THULETUVALU (Pierre Mennel)

Best Film Editing
ELECTROBOY (Thomas Bachmann)
CHRIEG (Christof Schertenleib)
DER KREIS (Christoph Menzi)