Love Thy Neighbours. An Analysis of Swiss Collaborative Policies in the Context of Transnational Film Production

Film production in Switzerland is particularly challenging in view of the country’s geographical, cultural and political specificities. The country is small in size, consists of three linguistic regions with their own cultural specificities, each of which is deeply influenced by the film supply from large, neighbouring countries. On top, since 2014, it is excluded from the European Union’s MEDIA programme, designed to support the European film and audio-visual industries. This stopped Swiss filmmakers to access important European funds. This paper analyses Switzerland’s Federal policy regarding support to film production, and namely international co-productions with neighboring countries, in light of the recent political development, as well as production history.