Picture a suburban neighborhood that mostly immigrant families and pensioners call home, hidden under a wide avenue and wedged on the edge of a forest and a river. Or as Swiss director Tizian Büchi…
Picture a suburban neighborhood that mostly immigrant families and pensioners call home, hidden under a wide avenue and wedged on the edge of a forest and a river. Or as Swiss director Tizian Büchi puts it: “A hole where no one ever goes, unless they live there.” This is the setting of his first feature film, “Like an Island,” selected in the international competition at Visions du Réel, in Nyon, Switzerland.
Through their words, they paint a touching and very lively portrait of this little-known district of Lausanne. Quickly, you feel so welcome there, you wish you’d be one of them. Büchi discovered cinema rather late. Watching Gus Van Sant’s “Gerry” proved a turning point, “It still gives me goosebumps when I think about it,” he says. Born and raised in Neuchâtel, Büchi moved to Lausanne to study the history and aesthetics of cinema at the university there, while working as a distributor for independent movies, and for several festivals, including Neuchâtel Intl. Fantastic Film Festival.