The Right to Forget

In recent years, global cinema has explored post-colonial narratives that challenge history and seek to decolonise our imaginations. One might assume that Switzerland – a country without colonies – would be untouched by this phenomenon. It is precisely here that The Right to Forget takes us by surprise. Beginning with the delicate question of inheritance and a grandfather’s gold mines linked to Mobutu Sese Seko, the film unfolds into a dizzying investigation. But the evidence has vanished, the archives destroyed by fire. Rather than filling this void, Lisa Mazenauer makes it the very DNA of her film. Adopting a minimalist approach with no voice-over, she turns silence into a narrative force, allowing the family taboo to converse with a shadowy, unacknowledged part of the nation. A groundbreaking, courageous and precise work that interrogates collective memory without heaviness, lucidly confronting what we might have preferred to leave forgotten.
 
Anne Delseth

The Right to Forget, 2026
Perseverance, 2023