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The TV app is here

Simple and safe

Our app for TVs and other devices with the Android TV operating system is finally here. It also runs on the new Swisscom TV box and, with a small addition, on all TV sets.

The key advantage of the TV app is that you no longer need to connect a laptop, tablet or cell phone to your big screen to watch our films. Once installed and linked to your cinefile account, it allows you to select, rent and play films directly on your TV set. We have divided our complete range into a handful of intuitive libraries in the app. Movies you have reserved, started or watched are automatically added to your personal watchlist.

How to get the app on your TV? Nothing could be easier if you have a Sony or Philips device or the Swisscom TV Box 5: Using your remote control, click on "Apps" in the menu bar and enter "cinefile" in the search by microphone or keyboard. Once the app is loaded, log in once with your e-mail address and your cinefile password.

We are aware that passwords are the scourge of the digital age. Give us a few days and the problem will disappear. We will also be adding further convenience features to the app on an ongoing basis from next week. And if you have any wishes or better ideas than we do, please write to us at info@cinefile.ch

But what if you don't have an Android device? We recommend the convenient HMDI stick Google-TV as an inexpensive solution, which can be connected to any TV and of course also combines the apps of all conceivable competitors from Netflix to AppleTV to PlaySuisse. It is currently available from Digitec & Co. from CHF 40 and will be even cheaper for our half-year subscribers from next week. Wait and see, the year has only just begun. 

PS: The TV app is also available directly in the Google Playstore via the link below and can be downloaded from there to any device with the same login. Not yet officially confirmed, but foreseeable is that Swisscom will also be upgrading older TV boxes to Android TV in the coming months.

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Recently added o

Bâtiment 5
Ladj Ly, France, 2023
with Anta Diaw, Alexis Manenti c6.4

Haby, a young black woman who is committed to improving life in her Parisian banlieue community, discovers a plan to redevelop the neighborhood and demolish the building in which she grew up. The man behind it is the white pediatrician Pierre Forges, who has risen to become mayor after the sudden death of the incumbent. Together with her family, Haby sets out to fight the city administration and its grand plans.

MORE F Watchlist
Ruäch – Eine Reise ins jenische Europa
Andreas Müller, Switzerland 2022, 118'
Menus plaisirs - Les Troisgros
Frederick Wiseman, France 2023, 240' c7.9
Perfect Days
Wim Wenders, Germany 2023, 123' c7.9
Bisons
Pierre Monnard, Switzerland 2024, 105' c7.0
Together
Lukas Moodysson, Sweden 2000, 106' c7.4
Priscilla
Sofia Coppola, Italy 2023, 110' c6.6
Jakobs Ross
Katalin Gödrös, Luxembourg 2023, 105' c7.8
The Quiet Girl
Colm Bairéad, Ireland 2022, 94' c7.7
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Blu-Ray

Recently added

Im Lauf der Zeit
Wim Wenders, 1976
Wim Wenders at this very best: the story of a male friendship and a journey into the past along the German zonal border.
Alice in den Städten
Wim Wenders, 1974
Wenders' powerful first road movie: a journalist crosses Germany with a headstrong girl he hardly knows in tow.
Dune: Part One
Denis Villeneuve, 2021
If only fantasy films were always like this: so grandiose and intimate, so densely told and beautiful to look at. David Lynch failed with this material in 1984, Denis Villeneuve triumphes.
Call Me by Your Name
Luca Guadagnino, 2017
This sun-drenched film about the first love of two young men in summery Italy in the 1980s brought Timothée Chalamet his international breakthrough in 2017.
All movies
 

Spotlight

100 YEARS OF PRAESENS FILM

The oldest Swiss production and distribution company still in existenceOn March 19, 1924, engineer Lazar Wechsler, who had immigrated from Austria ten years earlier, founded the film production company Praesens Film in Zurich. Wechsler, born in 1896 to a wealthy Jewish couple in what is now Poland, had studied at the ETH, worked for several years in bridge construction and became a naturalized citizen in 1923. At the time, he had no idea about the film business, and even later he was said to have only limited commercial talent.

Mittelholzer, Lindtberg, Schweizer, Berna Wechsler's start-up initially produced short advertising films for consumer products and cities, but caused a sensation as early as 1925 with the flight and travel reports of his partner Walter Mittelholzer, who later co-founded Swissair. It quickly became apparent that the busy producer had a flair for attractive humanistic themes and for building up a strong team. From the 1930s, the latter included theater director Leopold Lindtberg, who had fled from the Nazis, screenwriter Richard Schweizer and cameraman Emil Berna. With its patriotic films, Praesens Film AG developed into the most important cinematic stronghold of the so-called intellectual national defense against Nazi ideology shortly before and during the Second World War. For several years after the end of the war, it also reaped international laurels (and two Oscars), in some cases with the participation of star directors and actors such as Fred Zinnemann (The Search) or Cornel Wilde and Simone Signoret (Swiss Tour).

Glauser, Spyri, Dürrenmatt, FrühThe film adaptations of Swiss classics, the Heidi books by Johanna Spyri and crime novels by Glauser and Dürrenmatt with national stars such as Heinrich Gretler carried the company's fame into the 1950s. Finally, Zurich director Kurt Früh heralded the last great era of Praesens Film as a production company with his popular and gently socially critical films about the fragile, idealized world of the late fifties.

The Artist, Ma vie de courgette - and beyondAs afilm distributor, the company still exists and flourishes today, releasing 30-40 international films a year in cinemas and on streaming platforms, including the arthouse and entertainment hits The Artist, Call Me by Your Name, Ma vie de courgette and La famille Bélier since 2010 alone.

We would like to congratulate you and draw your attention to the current exhibition on the company's history at the National Museum in Zurich and the retrospectives in several Swiss cities: Here's to the next 100 years! (afu)

PRAESENS CLASSICS @ CINEFILE

Mein Persien-Flug, 1925
Originally a commissioned film from Tehran that broke new ground in terms of aviation and cinematography.
Wachtmeister Studer, 1939
Lindtberg's first Glauser adaptation, less biting than the original, but still a strong picture of the times, with Heinrich Gretler.
Gilberte de Courgenay, 1942
The moving story of a nationally known "soldier's mother" and identification figure of the generation serving during the war, with Anne-Marie Blanc.
Die letzte Chance, 1945
A legendary refugee drama with an international cast that glosses over Swiss politics, wrested from the censors before the end of the war.
Matto regiert, 1947
Lindtberg's second Glauser film, a flop at the time, but visually strong and critical of psychiatry.
Swiss Tour, 1949
A GI's flirts in "sophisticated" Zermatt and the art of skiing with bare mountain boots, with the then young star Simone Signoret.
Heidi, 1952
The Italian neo-realist and sentimentalist Luigi Comencini was hired for the famous "Heidi" film adaptation with Heinrich Gretler as the "Alpöhi".
Unser Dorf, 1953
The children's village in Trogen, founded in 1945 to alleviate children's wartime suffering, is the setting for this feature film about two vacationing children who want to stay.
Es geschah am hellichten Tag, 1958
The German stars Heinz Rühmann as the inspector and Gert Fröbe as the murderer characterize this Dürrenmatt adaptation with the evil twist at the end.
Bäckerei Zürrer, 1957
As an ageing baker, dialect actor Emil Hegetschwiler finds himself confronted with children who don't want to follow in his footsteps.
Hinter den sieben Gleisen, 1959
Ruedi Walter, Max Haufler and Zalri Carigiet as Society drop-outs at Zurich's freight depot who have to help a single mother.
Café Odeon, 1959
The outrageous theme of prostitution in the middle of the Zwingli town is softened into a melody with a sharp edge, yet bold for the time.
Die Schatten werden länger, 1961
Once again the theme of the "fallen girls", staged by Hungarian-born Ladislao Vajda ("It Happened in Broad Daylight").
Schneewittchen und die sieben Gaukler, 1962
A Swiss musical comedy, directed by Kurt Hoffmann, the best West German entertainment film director of the post-war period.
Der Fall, 1972
Kurt Früh's late attempt to tie in with the socially critical new Swiss film after 1968, in which the country appears as a gray soup.

The streaming alternative from Switzerland
Cinefile is the Swiss online home cinema for a cinephile audience in the digital age. Fans of  international arthouse and independent films, classics, newer films and the latest films that could be, get their money's worth. Four and a half years after going live, the online platform features around 700 films, including almost 200 Swiss productions. The streaming selection ranges from upscale entertainment to rigorous art films, and tries to avoid the platitudinous and stale as much as the stultified and pretentious.

The curation principle: class instead of mass
cinefile is operated and curated by a handful of experienced professionals and experts from the fields of film journalism, film production, film studies, digital marketing and information technology.
"The basic idea of cinefile," says founder Andreas Furler, "is that here comes together what we never found at Netflix & Co: Films that were recently shown in arthouse cinemas as well as reprises and classics, so-called "big" cinema as well as "small" cinema. 
"We don't care about the common distinction between arthouse and mainstream," Furler continues, "as long as a film fully convinces at least one person in our five-person team and the others don't see any valid reasons, such as unmistakable racism, sexism or glorification of violence, that forbid its publication because we don't want to serve these ideologies. We thus try to apply a generous, diversity-conscious standard and at the same time not to cut back on cinematic quality, admittedly: the daily squaring of the circle.
Our goal is to offer not as many as possible, but as good films as possible on cinefile. Class instead of mass' is our motto. We are aware that every taste is relative. That's why we never select alone. Billy Wilder said that every single viewer in the cinema hall is possibly a fool. But if 1000 of these fools gather in the dark, he continued,  then "critical genius" would come together. We like this bon mot to the swarm intelligence, even if our team consists so far of only five cinephile fools. "

Every film with accompaniment and 5 minutes trial period
Because we are aware of the relativity of every selection, we give our streaming audience five free minutes to form their own impression before renting every film.
In addition, we accompany each streaming film not only with catchy plot details, stills, posters and trailers, but also with short reviews and bonus materials, such as we write ourselves or gather on the web. Planned for March 2023 is an expansion of these activities to a small online magazine, so that we can communicate our favorite films even better and national and international events around the film also something broader in the view. 

Streaming in single rental: The cheapest Swiss platform for premiere films
Allfilms on cinefile are available for single rental in Switzerland and Liechtenstein with the free registration "Basic" without any subscription obligation. With a rental price of CHF 7.00 for all premiere films, cinefile is the cheapest pay-per-view platform in Switzerland - with a subscription, see below, the rental is even cheaper.
The films are all available in HD and original version with freely selectable subtitles, partly also in German or French dubbed versions. Streaming is easy: If you have a credit card on file, each new movie is available with a click and is up and running in no time. Other payment methods will be installed in March 2023. Already now, you can also initiate an online transfer to cinefile at any time with an email to info@cinefle.ch , which will be transferred to your cinefile account free of charge as freely usable credit. 

The way to the big screen
With the Air Play function of Apple TV or a Chromecast plug from Google, you can now already transfer our films to your big TV screen.  Personally, however, we prefer the good old super-simple connection with an HDMI cable, which is not subject to external influences such as the fluctuating WLAN connection on site.
The cinefile team is aware that all these remedies are not the last word in wisdom and is working on TV apps with which the range can be accessed directly on the TV sets of the popular brands. The main apps will be available from April 2023.

Take 1, 3 or 5: The even cheaper flat rate subscription for the entire range
cinefile's unique features include the Take1, Take3 and Take5 subscriptions, which offer flat rate tariffs for one, three and five films per month respectively. The single movie costs CHF 6.00 (14% discount) in the Take1 subscription, CHF 4.50 (36% discount) in the Take3 subscription and CHF 3.50 (50%) discount in the Take5 subscription. The subscription can be adjusted to the current film appetite or canceled at the end of each of the individually selectable billing periods. For our subscribers, cinefile is 100% free of advertising at .

Last but not least: The cinefile cinema guide and your personal watchlist
Cinefilesare cinema fans. That's why we have been striving for almost five years to publish the best-structured and most comprehensive cinema guide in Switzerland. With us, you can not only consult the country's complete cinema program sorted by films, times and cinemas and filtered according to your criteria, but also combine all cinema locations according to your needs and save the films you have your eye on in your personal watchlist, which is also automatically matched with your streaming favorites. In contrast  to the complete competition including Google, we also provide all program cinemas and open-airs with their and their complete offer - and of course we link you to the ticketing of every single one of the approximately 9000 weekly cinema screenings in Switzerland.

The cinefile newsletter and our presented digital hand
Our weekly newsletter in German and French is not just a PR tool for the  sale of our streaming movies, but also an info service with short reviews and hints on our favorite new movies and other events. So it's no wonder that after 4 years it has achieved ratings of between 45% and 57%, which is normal for digital marketing, but a minor miracle.
Any requests? Write to us at info@cinefile.ch. Our digital hand answers you during the week to 99% within 36 hours, on weekends (from Friday 14.00 o'clock - yes we like to finish early on Friday) until Monday 12.00 o'clock at the latest. If we do not meet this deadline, you will have a free movie to good with us from February 1, 2023.

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