Petra Volpe on Filming in American Prisons and the Universal Pull of Swiss Stories

Swiss filmmaker Petra Volpe, described as perhaps the most successful director in Switzerland, discusses her work in an interview that ranges from her parents' early advice to her international breakthroughs. Her mother and father once suggested she pursue something involving food, reasoning that people are always hungry. Volpe's films «Die göttliche Ordnung» and «Heldin» have nonetheless become international successes, an unusual outcome for Swiss cinema, which rarely travels far beyond the country's borders. The conversation examines what makes stories rooted in specifically Swiss settings resonate with audiences abroad. Volpe also turns her attention to American prisons, where inmates are forgotten by society, referred to by numbers rather than names, and where, according to the interview, this work gives them the feeling of being human again. She frames the underlying question as what a person is capable of when given the chance. The interview was published by the Swiss newspaper NZZ in its Feuilleton section, covering cinema, television and streaming.