The Reformer. Zwingli: A Life's Portrait

Friday, November 15 at 7 pm

Switzerland, 2019, 128 min., Director: Stefan Haupt, Screenplay: Simone Schmid, Cast: Maximilian Simonischek, Anatole Taubman, Sarah Sophia Meyer

Rating: PG-13 

A reception precedes the screening.

Zurich, 1519: it is the cusp of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland. Young widow Anna Reinhart lives a miserable life between her fear of the ever-powerful Catholic Church and her worries over the futures of her three children. Then, the arrival of a strange man in the city causes a stir – Ulrich Zwingli, a young priest, assumes his new post at Grossmünster Church. He sparks heated discussions with his sermons that condemn the Church’s abuses of power, excesses, and hypocrisies. Zwingli’s revolutionary thoughts frighten Anna, but when she observes how Zwingli practices exactly what he preaches, she becomes more and more enthralled. On the other hand, Zwingli’s popularity becomes more and more dangerous. His ideas almost trigger a civil war, and at the same time a struggle for power and interpretive authority erupts in the innermost circle of the Protestant Reformation movement. As the Catholic Church closes in on reform actions internationally, the relationship between Zwingli and Anna hangs in the balance.
 
Stefan Haupt was born in 1961 in Zurich. He attended the Zurich Theatre and Acting Academy (now part of the Zurich University of the Arts) between 1985 and 1988, and graduated with a degree in Theatre Pedagogy. Since 1989, he has worked as a director and freelance filmmaker. In 1998, he founded his own production company Fontana Film in Zurich. His feature film debut Utopia Blues was awarded the Zürcher Filmpreis and the Swiss Film Prize, among others. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross has been one of the most successful Swiss documentary films in Europe, with around 300,000 viewers in cinemas. From 2008 to 2010, Stefan Haupt served as President of the Association of Film Directors and Screenwriters Switzerland, and from 2007 to 2012 as a member of the Board of Trustees of the promotion agency SWISS FILMS. Stefan Haupt is married to actress Eleni Haupt. The couple has four children and lives in Zurich.