Other Lives But Ours
As we prepare for our 56th edition with an urgency all-too familiar to festivals, certain questions loom unavoidably, starting with that of the relevance and worth of festivals in 2025, in Switzerland and elsewhere.
First of all, as articulated by the American artist Nan Goldin, it is about sharing different facets of people’s lives, but also and above all of adorning them with the beauty and strength that we perceive in them. The relationship between filmmaker and subject is crucial, as is the relationship with the audience. What’s more, and in contrast to the rest of the world, efficiency is often rejected in favour of the pursuit of depth, grounded in a longer timeframe that encourages the weaving of complex, ambiguous and unconstrained stories. Counter-stories, then, or alternative and openly subjective stories, to which we add a poetic and aesthetic dimension – a (personal) “vision du réel” (vision of reality). . The festival space thus provides an interval that is conducive to asking questions, collective initiative and resistance, freedom of expression and truths, whatever they may be.
In this sense, our three guests embody a broad spectrum of approaches. The filmography of Raoul Peck – our Guest of Honour – is firmly rooted in the political, inhabited by the figures who epitomise the great struggles for emancipation. Imbued with dark humour, the films of Corneliu Porumboiu – our Special Guest – play on the absurdity that has permeated Romanian society since its sudden turn from communism to unbridled capitalism after the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Finally, Cláudia Varejão (Atelier), filmmaker deeply attuned to the sensitive world, has created a body of work that is profoundly feminist and contemporary, highlighting issues of emancipation and intimacy. Alongside these guests, the programme features some 150 films, including 88 world premieres and 58 countries represented (a record number).
The 2025 edition will thus be no exception: thanks to its filmmakers, Visions du Réel offers a moment of suspended time in which to bridge human divides through the medium of cinema. This is the very role of a festival, and of culture more broadly, which, then as now, must be relentlessly promoted and defended, in Switzerland and elsewhere, precisely in the name of everything it helps to build, or deconstruct.
Raymond Loretan, President of Visions du Réel
Emilie Bujès, Artistic Director
Mélanie Courvoisier, Administrative & Operational Director