Swiss Oscar entry news has grabbed huge attention in the film industry after Switzerland officially chose the documentary Who Is Still Alive by director Nicolas Wadimoff to represent the country in the best international feature category for twenty twenty seven. The movie follows nine Palestinians who left Gaza and uses their personal stories to talk about survival loss and leaving their homes behind without showing basic news clips.
The official Swiss cultural office announced this big decision in middle August explaining that the film will now attempt to reach the short list for the ninety ninth academy awards. This submission gives the project a massive platform to share deeply personal human experiences with audiences around the entire world. In this article we will look at how the movie was filmed the artistic choices made by the director and what this news means for international cinema.
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Swiss Oscar entry details and its unique filming style
Swiss Oscar entry status was awarded to this project partly because of its very creative visual approach to telling hard stories. The entire one hundred and fourteen minute documentary was shot inside a mostly empty studio where the black floor has simple white lines drawn on it to show a map of neighborhoods streets and camps in Gaza.
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The nine participants walk around on this painted floor pointing out where their houses used to be and describing the exact paths they walked while escaping danger. Instead of using fake actor reconstructions or heavy explosions the director relies completely on the memories voice stories and small movements of the survivors. Critics have compared this abstract floor setup to famous theatrical films where simple painted lines replace real walls and houses.
Why the production was filmed far away in South Africa
An interesting fact about the filming process is that the team had to produce the movie over in South Africa instead of Europe. The official team explained that South Africa was one of the very few countries where people leaving the region could travel without waiting for hard entry visas. Reports mentioned that European authorities refused to grant entry visas for the Palestinian participants so the production moved across the globe to complete the project. Filming in a distant country added a deeper meaning to the story because the participants were rebuilding their lost homes inside a studio very far away from their actual neighborhoods.
Swiss Oscar Entry: Personal memories shared by the local participants
Inside the studio room each person shares unique memories about their life before and during the conflict. One participant named Ghada talks about her deep love for riding bicycles through local streets while a musician named Firas plays a tradition instrument and revisits the exact musical note that was cut short when a explosion happened near him. Another artist named Adel describes returning secretly to be with his family before his house was hit. Other individuals including Jawdat Mahmoud Haneen Malak Hana and Eman also share their emotional journeys. The committee selected this project because it gives displaced people a safe space to speak and creates a symbolic home for those who lost everything.
Swiss Oscar Entry: Festival success and the long path to award night
Before becoming the Swiss Oscar entry the documentary had a long successful run at famous international film events around the world. It made its world debut back in September twenty twenty five at the Venice film festival where it won a special award for cinema and arts. Later in early twenty twenty six the project won a major award at the Solothurn film festival and earned a nomination for best documentary at the national Swiss film awards. It also traveled to big festivals in Cairo Toronto Istanbul and Durban receiving praise everywhere for avoiding political speeches and focusing on human identity.
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Official academy shortlists containing fifteen international movies will be revealed in middle December twenty twenty six with final nominations coming out in January twenty twenty seven. While documentaries rarely secure final spots in the international category notable exceptions like Honeyland and Flee proved that non fiction films can succeed across multiple categories. Regardless of final voting results people agree that selecting this movie as the official Swiss Oscar entry honors the real voices of survivors. International film fans will be watching closely as the Swiss Oscar entry advances through the preliminary voting rounds this coming winter.
