11.08.26 REACHING OUT TO ISA HESSE-RABINOVITCH
Forum talk and film screenings at the 79th Locarno Film Festival, organised by the Cinémathèque suisse
Tuesday, 11 August 2026
10:30 am, 60'
Forum @Spazio Cinema, Locarno Film Festival

Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch (1917–2003) was a unique figure in Swiss cinema. Coming from a family of artists, she taught herself filmmaking in the late 1960s and screened her first film, Spiegelei (1969), at the first International Festival of Women's Films in New York. Her short and feature-length films, as well as her video works, are distinguished by an abstract, experimental, enchanted, and poetic visual language. In Locarno, the Cinémathèque suisse presents two key works, Sirenen-Eiland (1981) and Geister und Gäste (1989). At the panel, the editors and contributors of a forthcoming issue of Cinémathèque suisse's online journal Repérages will discuss Hesse-Rabinovitch’s work from both historical and contemporary perspectives.
With Fabienne Liptay (University of Zurich), Burcu Dogramaci (Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich) and Seraina Winzeler (Cinémathèque suisse) as co-editors of a publication on Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch, and Marcel Henry (Museo Hermann Hesse Montagnola), Anka Schmid (film director), Rahel Jung (film scholar)
Organised by the Cinémathèque suisse
In German with simultaneous translation in French
Forum talk at the 79th Locarno Film Festival - Reaching Out to Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch
Video © Shot and edited by CISA Locarno, presented by Swisscom
The films Geister und Gäste (1989) and Sirenen-Eiland (1981) by Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch will be screened at the Locarno Film Festival on 7.8. 21:30 at PalaCinema 1 and 10.8. 17:30 at Gran Rex respectively.





