Carefully composed images celebrate the craftsmanship of watchmaking and combine it with a clear political stance.
1877: Russian cartographer Pyotr Kropotkin arrives in a valley in the Swiss Jura, attracted by the highly developed watchmaking industry there and by the news that workers have formed an anarchist trade union. He encounters a society in which officials and gendarmes keep the right time and set the pace for the production plant and the community. The production processes in the watch factories are being organized ever more efficiently, with control to the second creating increasing pressure on the workers. Josephine, who watches over the assembly of the balance wheel, the heart of the mechanical watch, and meets the newcomer Kropotkin, can also tell a thing or two about this. Inspired by anarchist ideas, they call for the liberation of time, setting solidarity and pacifism against market laws and nationalism.
Following his debut DENE WOS GUET GEIT, Cyril Schäublin gives us a historical film that could not be more beautiful or more topical. With carefully composed images, this film celebrates the craftsmanship of watchmaking and combines it with a clear political stance. Through alienation and irony, it becomes clear how topical and universal the theme of UNRUH is.
Switzerland 2022, 93 min.,
OmU version (Swiss German/French/Russian and others)
Director, screenplay, editor: Cyril Schäublin
With Clara Gostynski, Alexei Evstratov, Monika Stalder, Hélio Thiémard, Alice-Marie Humbert, Esther Flückiger, Alisa Miloglyadova, Elisaveta Kriman, Olga Bushkova and many others.
