NAIMA (Switzerland, 2024, 98′)

Tuesday September 30th, at 8 p.m., Cinema Massimo, Screen 2

National premiere

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International Title: Naima
Original Title: Naima
Director, screenplay: Anna Thommen
Photography: Gabriela Betschart
Editing: Claudio Cea, Anna Thommen
Sound: Ephrem Lüchinger
Production: Emilia Productions

Naima, a 46-year-old Venezuelan woman who has been living in Switzerland for seventeen years after leaving her country for love, living in precarious conditions in Basel. After spending many years doing low-income jobs, she is chosen for an internship to become a nurse. She has a friend who she confides with and she looks forward to seeing her two children, who live somewhere else and were born from her marriage with a Swiss man. Such marriage not only didn’t last long, but also made Naima unable to keep her kids due to her lack of economic and social stability in Switzerland. Naima is now happy for her new chance, wanders through the city with her bike, and has a boyfriend. However, her happiness is colliding with the harsh truth, since her colleagues see the absence of professional distance in her behavior at work.

Anna Thommen (Basel, 1980), after an initial experience as an elementary school teacher, studied Cinema at the School of Art and Design in Luzern, and then completed a Master’s degree in Documentary Cinema at Zurich’s University of Arts. She received numerous nominations and awards for her movies Neuland and Volunteer . Her filmography also includes the episode Neuland , shot in 2015 for the TV series P.O.V. , and the collective documentary Les nouvelles Eves (2021) created by six directors.

Filmography: Ein Stück Wahnsinn (doc, 2013, with Gabriela Betschart), Neuland (doc, 2013), Neuland (doc, 2015, for the TV series P.O.V. ), Volunteer (doc, 2019, with Lorenz Nufer), Les nouvelles Eves (doc, 2021, with Camille Budin, Annie Gisler, Jela Hasler, Thaïs Odermatt, Wendy Pillonel), Naima (doc, 2024).