During the late ‘60s and early ’70s, Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner was the key figure in the development and popularization of the “new Swiss cinema.” He remains one of his country’s best-known directors. Born in Geneva to a writer/painter and an actress, Tanner attended Geneva’s Calvin College where he studied economics and became fascinated by cinema. Following graduation and a brief stint as a merchant marine, Tanner began working for the British Film Institute in England where he worked in the information department organizing archives, adding subtitles to foreign films, translating, and other tasks. In 1957, Tanner made a short Free Cinema film, Nice Time, in collaboration with Claude Goretta. The film won a prize at that year’s Venice Film Festival and received critical praise in Great Britain. By 1960, he had returned to Switzerland, after pausing in France where he assisted on the production of a few commercial films. It was in Paris that Tanner met a number of important French… read more
