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Metropolitan Province

THE THANKLESS FOREIGNER

development / Drama

The unnamed protagonist (15) flees socialist Czechoslovakia with her parents in 1968 and embarks on a long journey of immigration – driven by the idea of a better world and the facade of hospitality. The Czech girl Mara (16) becomes her new friend. Together, the young women experience what it entails if one’s very existence is a provocation – Being young. Being a woman. Being beautiful. They search for strong feelings and happiness in a country that shies away from explicit emotions. Through the eyes of the protagonist and Mara, we get to know a bizarre Switzerland: On the one hand wealthy and proud to be a safe haven, on the other hand quickly irritated and insecure and even more easily provoked. This humorous, poetic and vulnerable story of two rascals is interwoven with a second narrative level, where we get to know the nameless as an adult woman (55).

Today, she works as an interpreter and translates for the present-day migrants. With her experience, she has found ways to preserve the right to be a stranger and she has developed the means to subversively integrate herself into the present. A present that can only become truly comprehensible to us through the multiple experiences of being foreign.

Switzerland
Duration 90 min.
Genre Drama
Languages Swiss German, Czech
Production Milan Film AG
Producers Cyrill Gerber, Caroline Meier
Author Joël László
Book Author Irena Brežná
Expected Delivery 2026

With the support of
Aargauer Kuratorium