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Cherry Pie

Switzerland, 2013

About

8horses, 85mins

Festivals

Locarno, IFF Rotterdam, Cinema Jove Valencia, New Horizons

Downloads

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Synopsis

Zoé tries to escape herself. Let down by her boyfriend, she travels north, drifting through faceless cities and gas stations and finds herself on a ferryboat where a mysterious woman suddenly appears. In the winter coat of a strange, Zoé, the invisible passenger, reaches the other side of the channel. A coming of age road trip, featuring one of the rising stars in French cinema.

Cast & Crew

Producer - Simon Jaquemet, Lorenz Merz

Featuring - Lolita Chammah, Maria Pomiansky, Henrie Campanella, Fiorella and Orfeo Campanella, Marie-Claire and Michal Boscher

Cinematographer - Lorenz Merz, Gabriel Lobos

Music - Marcel Vaid

Reviews

Indiewire

"Across the quintet of works programmed as part of the Signs of Life strand, pilgrimage emerged as a strong theme. Perhaps the most obvious example of this was in Swiss filmmaker Lorenz Merz’s debut feature, Cherry Pie, in which Zoe (Lolita Chammah) flees a violent boyfriend, heads north through depopulated places without a franc to her name and, in an increasingly catatonic state, crosses the Channel into Brighton, England. Cherry Pie barely gives its audience or its protagonist room to breathe; at several points, a hand reaches out from behind the camera and literally molests Zoe. Merz — also cinematographer — shoots the whole thing in a silvery miserablist palette and often with an extremely shallow depth of field. On the surface, then, the film promised very little, but it is compelling, mostly due to Chammah’s performance and her willingness to fulfill the curious demands of her director — speaking of whom, on this evidence, Merz clearly has talent to burn."

Lorenz Merz

Lorenz Merz

Director

Lorenz Merz was born 1981 in Zurich from swiss-american parents. After formation in painting and photography he studied film at University of the Arts Zurich and Universidad del Cine Buenos Aires. His graduate piece Un dia y nada (2008) won several awards, including the Pardino d’argento at the 61st Locarno IFF and the Swiss Film Prize (2009).