Marie-Eve Hildbrand will present her first feature-length film Healers (Les Guérisseurs) in world premiere on Thursday 15 April. The opening ceremony will take place in the presence of the Federal Councillor, Alain Berset, Member of the Cantonal Council of Vaud, Cesla Amarelle, Fabienne Freymond Cantone, representing the City of Nyon, the CEO of SSR SRG, Gilles Marchand and Jean-Philippe Moser, Board member of la Mobilière. For the first time in the history of the International Film Festival Nyon, the opening film will also be broadcast on RTS, thus inviting a larger audience to take part in the only festival in Switzerland dedicated to non-fiction filmmaking.
Marie-Eve Hildbrand focuses on the human dimension of medicine in an ever-changing system. At the intersection of generations and practices, Healers questions the vocation and profound meaning of caring for others. “It is a pleasure to open the 52nd edition of Visions du Réel with the first film by a highly talented director. Moreover, it seemed particularly pertinent to us that it takes into account the realities of the work of healthcare professionals through a sensitive and personal approach,” says Emilie Bujès, Artistic Director of Visions du Réel. “One year ago, we became the first Festival to entirely reinvent ourselves online thanks to many collaborations, particularly with RTS and SSR SRG, who are precious and historic partners of the Festival. The presentation of the opening film on RTS this year accentuates this close and essential connection.”
Marie-Eve Hildbrand explains: “When I first started this project, I didn’t think that the questions it raises would resonate so much with the events we are all experiencing. The film examines an invisible but, in my opinion, indispensable part of the healing process: the link to the other. I would like to thank Emilie Bujès and Visions du Réel for this invitation and I am deeply delighted to be able to share this film, in Nyon and on RTS, while waiting to meet again, in real life, in the flesh, in a cinema.”
Marie-Eve Hildbrand was born in Lausanne in 1978. An ECAL graduate, she is the co-founder of terrainvague.ch, a collective of filmmakers based in her native city. In 2017, Marie-Eve Hildbrand received the Special Prize of the Swiss Film Academy for her collaboration in the animated film Ma vie de courgette by Claude Barras. Healers is the winning project of the 8th Pour-cent culturel Migros documentary competition Switzerland, and is produced by Jean-Stéphane Bron and Agnieszka Ramu at Bande à part, in co-production with SSR SRG and RTS Télévision Suisse.
The opening of the Festival will take place in two stages:
In Nyon on 15 April with an official, live-streamed ceremony in the presence of Alain Berset, Federal Councillor Alain Berset, Cesla Amarelle, Member of the Cantonal Council of Vaud, Fabienne Freymond Cantone, Head of Cultural Affairs of the City of Nyon, Gilles Marchand, CEO of SSR SRG and Jean-Philippe Moser, board member of la Mobilière, the Festival’s main sponsor.
On RTS2, Friday 16 April at 8.15 pm, during a show hosted by Joëlle Rebetez, with the director of the film, Marie-Eve Hildbrand, and Emilie Bujès, Artistic Director, followed by the prime time broadcast of the film.
From Saturday 18 April at 11 am, Healers will be available online on the Festival’s film platform.
This film is available in audio description and with subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing on the Greta application thanks to Regards Neufs.
The full programme of the 52nd edition of Visions du Réel will be unveiled on 25 March 2021 during the press conference.