Aspects of animated films in Switzerland
Animation began in Switzerland in 1921 when the French Lortac and Cavé produced L’Histoire de M. Vieux-Bois taken from the works of Tœpffer at the request of the Genevans François Ehrenhold and Maurice Peyrot.
It was a little later, in 1924, that the Praesens film-company was founded in Zurich and rapidly became the most active company of its type in the country, producing a series of promotional films. From 1930, the company worked with Werner Dressler who oversaw Central-Film production.
Another major studio was founded in 1934 in Bern by Julius Pinschewer. The Pinschewer production workshop produced several dozen short-length promotional films up until around 1960, including Schweizer Sinfonie which opened the national Exhibition in Zurich in 1939.
In 1938, the painter-musician Charles Blanc-Gatti founded Montreux Color-Film. With Chromophony (1939), he attempted to establish an exact correspondence between abstract images in movement and music.
Up until the 1960s, most animation production was done to order. After the emergence of new film-making techniques and the acceptance of some particularly original works, the domain covered by animation evolved considerably. Every year the Soleure festival shows a selection of animated films which are part experimental (Guido and Eva Haas, Erwin Huppert) and part classic animation (Georges Dufaux). The advent of television brought many new possibilities for animation.
The films produced by Ernest Ansorge show how the field has evolved. Together with the writer Gisèle Ansorge, he produced a series of short films using sand animation techniques including Les Corbeaux (1968), Fantasmatic (1969), Anima (1977), Le Petit garçon qui vola la lune (1988), Alchimia (1991), Sabbat (1991).
In 1968, the creation of the Swiss Animated Film Group around Bruno Edera contributed to the recognition of the quality of work produced in Switzerland and increased the circulation of Swiss films. In Geneva, the GDS studio gathered the talents of Georges Schwizgebel, Daniel Suter, Claude Luyet. The Schwizgebel films were noted for the fact that were able to put together particularly complex movements from brightly coloured drawings. As well as teaching animation techniques, Robi Engler brought out a series of films such as Métro-Boulot-Dodo (1972) up until Globi der gestohlene Schatten (2003), a feature-length film which he helped coproduce.
In the 80s and 90s, Martial Wannaz or the Wabak collective made their name with often grating works. Constant renewal marked the domain which regularly saw the appearance of new authors: Jonas Raeber and his studio SWAMP; Zoltan Horvath; Antoine Guex; Claude Barras; the Guillaume brothers; Isabelle Favez and Cédric Louis, among others.
The complete version of this text is available in French on the website.