The year is 1900 in the French-speaking Swiss Alps. Elisabeth (Lilith Grasmug), 17, is forced to leave her convent because her sister, Innocente, has died and the family farm needs another hand. So far, so classical, but what begins as a gorgeously photographed tale of a deeply religious community eking out a subsistence living soon evolves into a fever dream of sexual hysteria when Elisabeth, emboldened by her sister’s explicit journal, seeks spiritual enlightenment through sexual exultation.
First-time writer-director Carmen Jaquier tackles some big issues here—religious repression vs. female liberation via sexuality; the relationship between religious ecstasy and orgasmic pleasures; the body vs. the spirit—but the foundational point of her story is the dramatization and embrace of the vividness of being alive: the bracingly fresh air, crystalline running water, effusive vegetation, and above all, the penetrating light of the immense mountain setting. Replete with indelible images that will remain with you for days, Thunder marks a bold debut from a talent to watch.
Supported by
Lilith Grasmug, Mermoz Melchior, Benjamin Python, Noah Watzlawick, Sabine Timoteo, François Revaclier
Switzerland
2022
In French with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Love
This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).
Sex
Two chimney sweeps living in heterosexual marriages find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. In a set of sharply scripted conversations, both men confront heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.
3 Faces
Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...
Dreams
The third installment in the Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy is another rich, absorbing tale. 17-year-old Johanne writes a confessional about her flirtation with a (female) teacher. But the writing is too good to stay private...
Transit
Trust the director of Phoenix and Barbara to re-imagine a WWII romantic intrigue into something unsettlingly contemporary. With occupying forces closing in, a German refugee (Franz Rogowski) assumes a dead writer's identity and flees to Marseille.
Credits
Producer
Flavia Zanon, Joëlle Bertossa
Screenwriter
Carmen Jaquier
Cinematography
Marine Atlan
Editor
Xavier Sirven
Production Design
Ivan Niclass, Rekha Musale
Original Music
Nicolas Rabaeus
Director
Carmen Jaquier
Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Carmen Jaquier studied graphic design before entering the Cantonal School of Art in Lausanne (ECAL). Her films have been showcased at the Locarno Film Festival: her graduation film Le Tombeau des filles (2011) received the Pardino d’argento, and La Rivière sous la langue and Heimatland were selected in 2015. She was a cinematographer on the documentary A Bright Light: Karen and the Process (2018), which was presented at Visions du Réel. Thunder is her first feature film.