Cinéma Copain
In addition to producing movie trailers and commissioned movies, Cinéma Copain is also the production company for the owners’ own cinematic works and those of like-minded artists.
Our intention is to allow those developing and producing movie projects as much artistic independence as possible and create an atmosphere that fosters the courage to push narrative and creative invention to its limits.
MARCEL DEREK RAMSAY
Before film school, Marcel Derek Ramsay was a professional photographer. His award-winning works were showcased at many exhibitions. His short movies – often experimental and found-footage works – earned him a nomination for the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival and other recognition. He was a cameraman on Samir’s documentary movie “Babylon 2”, now deeply embedded in Switzerland’s cultural heritage. Later, he worked for some years as a cutter for Swiss TV, commercials, and independent productions.
His editing has informed many animated movies and documentaries, including “Beyond Farewell” by Susanna Hübscher, “L’Île Noire” by Nino Christen, “The Cable Car” and “Sleep” by Claudius Gentinetta, “Sira – Songs of the Crescent Moon” by Sandra Gysi and Ahmed Abdel Mohsen, and Jacqueline Zünd’s “Goodnight Nobody”, which won wide recognition internationally. He was also the cutter for “Die Erweiterung der Pupillen beim Eintritt ins Hochgebirge” (“The widening of the pupils when entering the high mountains”) for the Swiss Alpine Museum, Bern. This evening-length collage of 100 Swiss movies was produced in close collaboration with the author Antione Jaccoud (“Home”, “Sister”) and was celebrated as an important event throughout Switzerland.
In 2008 Marcel Derek Ramsay founded the Cinéma Copain Ltd. production company, where he has produced movie trailers, documentaries and animated movies. In 2015, his first full-length movie celebrated its acclaimed debut: “The Master and Max”, which Le Monde described as ““Captivating! An original, enchanting work of cinematic poetry of astounding beauty”. A number of animated movies and his own documentary movie about noise musician Joke Lanz, entitled “My Life is a Gunshot”, are currently in production.
MICHÈLE WANNAZ
Following a degree in journalism, film studies and modern German literature, Michèle Wannaz worked for many years as an editor and freelance journalist – for publications including Tages Anzeiger, Berliner Zeitung, WOZ, NZZ and NZZ Folio – and later trained as a script consultant.
She has been responsible for research and design on several documentary movies, co-designed an Arte series, worked as a script consultant, author and co-author on feature movies – for Oscar winner Xavier Koller, Oscar nominee Markus Imhoof, famous swiss visual artist and director Pipilotti Rist, Michael Steiner and Micha Lewinsky among others – and is the author of “Dramaturgie im Autorenfilm – Erzählmuster des sozialrealistischen Arthouse-Kinos” (“Dramaturgy in the auteur movie – narrative models of the social realism arthouse cinema”). In the book, she examines works by writer/directors including the Dardenne brothers, Mathieu Kassovitz, Valeska Grisebach and Ken Loach and reveals astonishingly similar patterns in movies that are initially perceived as though their narrative structures were simply “drawn from real life”.
She spent many years as a member of the “Documentary Film” committee of the Swiss Federal Department of Culture (BAK), a member of the Feature Film Committee of the Zurich Film Foundation and (simultaneously) as a project manager with the W.I.R.E. think tank, where she curated exhibitions and co-edited a series of books about current global trends (published by Suhrkamp Verlag).
Michèle Wannaz has worked with Cinéma Copain as a producer and script consultant since 2016.