23/11/2018 - Following the success of Wonderland, filmed with nine other directors, and the short film Stars, created with the artist Nagi Gianni, the Swiss director is gearing up to tackle a new adventure

Currently in development and produced by the Geneva-based production company Close Up, Carmen Jaquier's first feature is gradually beginning to take shape. Following the success of Wonderland [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carmen Jaquier and Lionel R…
film profile], shot with nine other directors, and the short film Stars, created with the artist Nagi Gianni, the Swiss director is gearing up to tackle a new adventure. Although the film’s shoot dates are still uncertain, Thunder [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carmen Jaquier
film profile] can already count on the support of the Suissimage young filmmakers' fund (400,000 Swiss Francs). Carmen Jaquier and Ursula Meier are in fact two graduates of this important financial fund.

As in Carmen Jaquier’s previous films, Thunder focuses on a strong, free female character struggling with dilemmas related to her status as a woman in a society that often relegates her to the role of a spectator. As revealed by the director herself, the question that led her to develop the film was: "and if God were desire?" This was the starting point for the screenplay, a reflection on an already well-defined artistic universe.

It's summer 1900 and a young Elisabeth is about to take vows, but the brutal death of her older sister forces her to leave the convent. Her plans change brutally, and she returns to live in her childhood village in order to help her parents take care of her brothers and sisters.

Little by little, the silence that surrounds her sister's death pushes Elisabeth to look for answers in her old circle of friends: Paul, Emilie and Joseph. After five years of absence, the reunion with her three friends will test her certainties and push her to confront the notion of desire.

Carmen Jaquier talks about women, their dreams, their desires, their obsessions, and she does it through their eyes. She re-appropriates a universe that is too often described from a male point of view. This is perhaps the strength of her artistic universe, poised between dream and reality, control and freedom.

Thunder is being developed with the support of MEDIA, OFC, Cinéforom and Pour-cent culturel Migros.

In parallel with the creation of Thunder, Carmen Jaquier is also working on a feature film project with the Swiss director Jan Gassmann. The film in question, entitled Les Paradis de Diana, focuses on a woman who abandons her partner and son immediately after giving birth. The film was produced by 2:1 Films and co-produced by the French outfit Paraiso Production.