Tamina – Will There Ever Be What Used to Be?

Tamina - wann war es immer so?

Beat Oswald, Lena Hatebur & Samuel Weniger
Switzerland | 2024 | 107 min
World premiere
Languages : Swiss German, German
Subtitles : English, French

Wolves are returning to the Swiss Alps, and Beat Oswald, in this co-directed project, is determined to see one. Arriving in the idyllic Tamina valley, his encounters with the inhabitants and tourists force him to start questioning our place in nature, leading to an existential reckoning. His project unfolds into a multilayered quest, full of wonder and adventure.

Wolves are returning to the Swiss Alps, and Beat Oswald is determined to find them. To do this, he settles on the Tamina Valley, an idyllic setting on the edge of the Grisons region, and more specifically, the small town of Vättis. Yet on the traces of the wolf, it is mostly humans he comes across. A fundamental question thus emerges: Even though the wolf was hunted and wiped out 130 years ago, does it still have a place in a strictly controlled and regulated environment? Are we still capable of dealing with the unexpected? And what are we talking about when we nostalgically allude to untouched nature? In this quest - which moves freely between genres such as the thriller, observational films, animal documentaries and adventure - Lena Hatebur, Beat Oswald and Samuel Weniger (Golden Age, VdR 2019) unravel the debate surrounding the reintroduction of wolves, probing the Anthropocene more broadly. Rewarding us with delightful formal surprises, they succeed in bearing witness to the smallness of our civilisation in the face of Nature, asking the following question: Will we always be what we have been?

Aurélien Marsais

Beat Oswald
Tamina - Will There Ever Be What Used to Be?, 2024
Golden Age, 2019
Volskfest, 2014
Thanks to the Rawberry, 2011
Pullup Orchestra in Avignon, 2010

Samuel Weniger
Tamina - Will There Ever Be What Used to Be, 2024
Anthology of Everything, 2019
Golden Age, 2019
I Kissed Your Kiss On Your Girlfriend Cheek, It Was Still Wet, 2016
We Are Ok, 2015
Boomyear, 2012
Super Life, 2010

Lena Hatebur
Tamina – Will There Ever Be What Used to Be?, 2024