East Coast Premiere
THE LIGHTER SIDE

Bonjour Switzerland

Bon Schuur Ticino

PETER LUISI
Switzerland, 2023
88 minutes, Color
Official website

This sly satire is both a witty throwback to the era of screwball comedies and a timely takedown of our troublesome current events. When a charismatic huckster pressures Switzerland—a nation with four official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh—to hold a vote that results in French becoming the single mandatory language of the country, sad-sack policeman Walter (Beat Schlatter) becomes one of the people who must enforce the new law. That Walter can only speak German and is failing his new language classes is only part of his problem. When militants in the heavily Italian-speaking region of Ticino threaten to secede, Walter and his French-speaking partner Jonas (Vincent Kucholl) are tasked with infiltrating the rebels. Of course, everyone's plans go delightfully awry.—Dave Nuttycombe

In Swiss German, French, and Italian with English subtitles