You do not want to force the issue

on Monday evening in April. Bea Cuttat went to Bern to attend an event with Christian Petzold, one of those Directors whose work they had done to the Swiss audience. Petzold told of his next project, it's called "Undine" and is a modern Interpretation of the mermaid myth. His enthusiasm for the Film , he begins to turn soon, is contagious, and as a farewell, he asks the question of all questions: "you'll care in Switzerland yet, are you?" Bea Cuttat laughs. But the answer is clear: "no."

for Years, a faithful Companion in the Swiss cinema: The Look-Now-Jingle. Video: Look Now.

Bea Cuttat stop. "Nuestro Tiempo" by Carlos Reygadas, is the last new Film for you with your company's Look Now! the rights in the world market has bought, in order to bring him in Switzerland to the cinema. Once again, fighting, flattery, Persuasion make for a difficult work that threatens to be drowning in the flood of new releases. Once again, give everything, just as it has done for over 30 years. 265 films you launched at this time, if the tinkering with images right from your program, the put your friends to the office (you yourself didn't count exactly). The span stretched from the Swiss experimental film about the first animated films with Wallace & Gromit to the avalanche film "Turist" of the later Cannes-winner Ruben Östlund. This is the end. Your Rental Look Now! will there be still. But he will deal only with the rights of the old films.

Consistently and also stubborn

of Course, Bea Cuttat 67 years old, and has all of the basic, shorter face. And clearly it is not a short-circuit action, with all the passion she has for the profession ("Passion" is the second-to-last Film of your rental program). No, the farewell is prepared, like everything in your activity. And yet, a trace of Resignation with swings, if you are sitting now in your office in Zurich's district 5 and says: "in five years I'll think about it." Why? "Lately, I always had the feeling I would have to intrude. And everywhere: in the cinemas, in the case of the journalist, ultimately, the audience."

For the Impose, in the best sense of the word, is known. "She is heart and soul behind their films," says Beat Käslin of Zurich's art house cinemas. And also Frank brown, of the programmed films, the Riffraff, as well as other cinemas in Lucerne and Zurich, praises her passion and unwillingness to compromise: "it was risk, consistently and in a sense to be stubborn." A property that it takes in this profession, especially if one takes the rental as A one-woman-company. Bea Cuttat never made a holiday, there wasn't time. And she was also of serious accidents did not stop. Once you fell from the bike, as you to the train station and drove to Roy Andersson, the Swede is one of your favorite Directors to pick up your–. A second Time she fell in Cannes. But the injuries couldn't stop them. They had a hospital bed delivered to the office, temporarily lived there – and many who called in, had no idea in what physical condition the woman, the voice on the phone was.

Look Now has Peter Liechti ten movies in the rental, the last one was "father's garden", the honest portrait of Liechti's parents. Video: Look Now.

But now the big one has started to clean up. Much has accumulated over the years: contracts, reviews, Flyer, movie posters. Of the Latter, not a single hang on the office wall. "When I started, at that time, in a room of the old cinema RAID, I hung the posters of the first 15 movies that I have supervised,. Then it had no place, and I did not want to provide reasons for a Visit to my Directors why this subject is hanging on the wall and which will not." Therefore, the figures in the film not adorn her expansive office. But the images of Swiss artists, but also less space, if you move the end of the year on the same floor in a smaller room.

business

in 1988 with "journeys into the interior had Begun." Bea Cuttat from Schaffhausen, was already an experienced movie theater woman, had worked at the Swiss film centre and the first independent distributor Filmcoopi. But for this 16-mm Film of the documentarist, Matthias von Gunten is there was no rental structure. "I'll do it," she said. And slipped in, next followed, to the next.

There were great successes such as the Swedish Teen movie "Fucking Amal", which nobody had really believed. There were disappointments, such as the football film "builders of the Nation", of the business hoped for. But such is totally unpredictable, even with the experience of Bea Cuttat.

Despite the cutting table in the office: celluloid plays no role anymore, the sales of the films running today, digital.

Look Now! – the Name is a throwback to the Thriller "Don't Look Now" – remained in all of the UPS and Downs of a success story. It had started with a movie crack: On Saturday, her first Film was finally met Bea Cuttat the surgeon, on the road, rather than in the cinema. "The Film is torn, we can't play," he said with a shrug. Even today, a cutting table in your office, with copies to the damage can be controlled. Only: celluloid plays no role, and the movie distribution is done today is digital.

Before the Swede Ruben Östlund with "The Square" won the Golden palm in Cannes, showed Look Now in Switzerland, his evil game movie "Turist" an anxious father on a skiing holiday. Video: Look Now.

This is a reason for the increase in the number of copies and the fast pace of the business. A Film has to today take on the first day, otherwise he is gone. The "Outdoor" – like Bea, it Cuttat calls – contribute their part to the Malaise: You stand in nice weather with a beer in front of the Riffraff than to go into the hall. Netflix and the dwindling DVD business. "Who has as a small rental no patron in the Background is virtually no chance," says Cuttat. You could try the business model to adapt, to combine rental and production. But she has no more desire: "to Me, the traditional cinema is much liked best: All sit there, it gets dark, the movie starts."

What will the future bring? The old Look-Now!-Movies will continue to be available. "Undine" by Christian Petzold will otherwise find a way into Switzerland. But what the Distributor is doing, if you live for the first Time in your store a couple of days free? Also, since you took care of: "I have homeland security brochures." You don't want to visit places in Switzerland that you did not know before. Bea Cuttat calls the "forced program". With a laugh, as you have just discovered a new film pearl.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 01.05.2019, 19:48 PM