Andres Bruetsch, Author and Director

Andres Bruetsch, born in 1951 in Basel, is a Swiss author, documentary filmmaker and producer. He began his directing career in 1976 at Condor Films in Zurich. From 1978 he worked as a freelance writer, director and cinematographer of commissioned and advertising films, first in Switzerland, then from 1980 also in England, the Netherlands and South Africa, and from 1996 in the United States.

In 1985, as managing director, he took over the majority of the production company Topic Film in Zurich, becoming its sole owner from 1992 until its sale in 2011. From 2004, he expanded the company’s scope to include the production of feature films and documentaries (Topic Features) and founded Topic Films Ltd. USA.

Since 2011, he has worked as a freelance writer and director of documentary films, including portraits such as “Elisabeth Kopp – Eine Winterreise” (2007) and “Othella Dallas – What Is Luck?” (2015).

Bruetsch served for many years as president of the Swissfilm Association and the Zurich Film Association.

He played a key role in founding the Zurich Film Foundation, serving as its vice president for eight years. After many years as a guest lecturer on storytelling in film at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, he now devotes himself exclusively to independent projects. His first novel, “Schiffbruch und Wahrheit,” was published in 2021, followed by his second novel, “Sein Name Pejdr Vuolp,” in 2022. Since 2024, he has been exploring the work of artist Alberto Giacometti. This led to the play “Non riesco – oder die Einsamkeit des Apfels,” for which Matthias Ziegler composed the music.

Alberto Giacometti - Giacometti-Non Riesco, or The Loneliness of the Apple

Alberto Giacometti returns and tries to make sense of his inner conflicts and his art.
A captivating monologue—from the son of a painter from Bregaglia to a multi-award-winning international artist. He analyzes, wrestles with his thoughts, and reflects—only to conclude: “I can’t do it again. Non riesco.” The music by Matthias Ziegler, composed specifically for the content and performed live, creates space and a profound sense of poignancy through its minimalist style.

Alberto Giacometti, Painter, Sculptor, Graphic Artist

Alberto Giacometti was born in 1901 in Borgonovo in the Bregaglia valley, the eldest of four children of the post-Impressionist painter Giovanni Giacometti. Drawing and modelling were part of daily family life from early childhood; his brother Diego would later remain his closest assistant and model throughout his life. In 1922 he moved to Paris, studied under Bourdelle, and for a time joined the Surrealists before returning to figurative work in 1935.

During the war years, spent in Geneva, he developed the extremely slender, seemingly distant figures that would make his work famous. From 1945 he again lived and worked in Paris, in a tiny, modest studio – even once his fame had become international. He moved in the circles of Sartre, Beckett and Genet, becoming a symbolic figure of post-war existentialist art.

Central to his character was a deep, almost tormenting doubt about his own work: Giacometti painted over, destroyed and restarted countless pieces, never quite believing he had fully captured what he saw. This relentlessness toward himself stood in contrast to his personal modesty and his lifelong attachment to his home valley, to which he returned again and again. He died in 1966 in Chur and is buried in Borgonovo.

Matthias Ziegler, Flutist, Composer, Sound Explorer

Matthias Ziegler was born in 1955 in Bern and grew up in Zurich. He began playing the flute at the age of ten and went on to study with renowned teachers including Conrad Klemm, André Jaunet, Geoffrey Gilbert and William Bennett. Toward the end of his studies he faced a choice between music and architecture at ETH Zurich – he chose the flute, though his architectural curiosity has stayed with him ever since, shaping his sound and spatial projects.

His work spans traditional flute repertoire, contemporary music, and boundary-crossing concepts between classical music and jazz. Ziegler has significantly expanded the expressive range of the flute, most notably through the electro-acoustically amplified contrabass flute. Composers such as Michael Jarrell, George Gruntz, Mathias Rüegg, Benjamin Yusupov and Mark Dresser have written works specifically for him. His musical partners include percussionist Pierre Favre, bassist Mark Dresser and the Collegium Novum Zürich; concert tours have taken him to the United States, Japan, Australia, South America and Israel.

For many years, Ziegler was professor of flute and improvisation at the Zurich University of the Arts, where he also initiated telematic concerts performed live over the internet; he has since stepped back from this teaching post. As artistic director of the series "Palladio – Musik & Raum" and former director of the "Flims Klang" festival, he combines music with striking architecture and landscapes. For the music-theatre project "GIACOMETTI – NON RIESCO" (texts by Andres Brütsch), he is writing the music.