
Directing
Ruedi Gerber
Known for
Directing
Credits
18 titles
Ruedi Gerber founded ZAS Film AG in Zurich in 1992. Gerber started out as a stage actor in the early 1980s, playing a wide range of theaters in the German-speaking world (Mannheim, Basel, Wuppertal etc.), initially as a member of a theater company and later in the independent and experimental drama scene. From 1986 to 1990 he studied film at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York and graduated with honors. His first documentary films, Living with the Spill and Meta Mecano, found international recognition, and his first feature film, Heartbreak Hospital, starring Patricia Clarkson, came out in 2002. He gained international fame with three documentaries about the world-renowned postmodern d…
Known for
NRThe Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland, designed by Mario Botta, opened in 1996, five years after the Swiss sculptor's death. META MECANO is a poetic depiction of the genesis of this mono-graphic museum, from the builders' first plans and Mario Botta's designs to its construction and the assembly of Tinguely's fragile mobile sculptures. In interviews with Mario Botta, Tinguely's wife Niki de Saint Phalle, museum director Pontus Hultén and Tinguely himself, the film goes on to explore the mission of museums and of art in general today. META MECANO is a unique document on the significance of the artist Jean Tinguely and on the role that museums play in our day and age.
Meta-Mecano
1997
7.2BREATH MADE VISIBLE is the first feature length film about the life and career of Anna Halprin, the American dance pioneer who has helped redefine our notion of modern art with her belief in dance's power to teach, heal, and transform at all ages of life. This cinematic portrait blends recent interviews with counterparts such as the late Merce Cunningham, archival footage, including her establishment of the first multiracial dance company in the U.S., and excerpts of current performances such as "Parades and Changes" at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, to weave a stunning, inspiring account of one of the most important cultural icons in modern dance.
Breath Made Visible: Anna Halprin
2009
It takes place at a birthday party on a single fateful evening. Lenny, the birthday boy, is an insecure young man who has something to prove. After he's already had too much to drink, his cynical drinking buddy Willy goads him into proving his marksmanship by trying to shoot a bottle off his wife's head with a revolver. This black comedy is a farcical twist on the William Tell legend and on the true story of William Burroughs, who, likewise under the influence, tried to shoot a glass off his wife's head, missed and shot her dead instead.
Midnight Barbecue
1991
SENIORS ROCKING explores the artistic process of Anna Halprin, a pioneer of American dance, through the prism of a single performance piece. The film retraces not only the development of a unique performance with residents of two nursing homes in California, but also the growth of a sense of community when fifty people from various walks of life, age 65 to 100, join forces to perform together. Underpinned by Halprin’s conviction that dance and movement embolden people to express themselves and, in so doing, change their lives, the film shows how the participants give physical shape to their personal messages for posterity through a dance performance.
Seniors Rocking
2010
NRDuring decades of globalization, countless rural communities worldwide found themselves abandoned - from America's Midwest to Italy's mountain villages and places like Tatti face extinction. In this small Italian town, elderly residents lacked the strength to reinvent their fading world and lost hope – until outsiders arrived.
Tatti in the World
2026
NRAuguste Rodin's sculptures and Anna Halprin's creative process come together in this poetic film of dances in nature.
Journey in Sensuality: Anna Halprin and Rodin
2016
Behind the camera
NRThe Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland, designed by Mario Botta, opened in 1996, five years after the Swiss sculptor's death. META MECANO is a poetic depiction of the genesis of this mono-graphic museum, from the builders' first plans and Mario Botta's designs to its construction and the assembly of Tinguely's fragile mobile sculptures. In interviews with Mario Botta, Tinguely's wife Niki de Saint Phalle, museum director Pontus Hultén and Tinguely himself, the film goes on to explore the mission of museums and of art in general today. META MECANO is a unique document on the significance of the artist Jean Tinguely and on the role that museums play in our day and age.
Meta-Mecano
1997
NRThe Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland, designed by Mario Botta, opened in 1996, five years after the Swiss sculptor's death. META MECANO is a poetic depiction of the genesis of this mono-graphic museum, from the builders' first plans and Mario Botta's designs to its construction and the assembly of Tinguely's fragile mobile sculptures. In interviews with Mario Botta, Tinguely's wife Niki de Saint Phalle, museum director Pontus Hultén and Tinguely himself, the film goes on to explore the mission of museums and of art in general today. META MECANO is a unique document on the significance of the artist Jean Tinguely and on the role that museums play in our day and age.
Meta-Mecano
1997
7.2BREATH MADE VISIBLE is the first feature length film about the life and career of Anna Halprin, the American dance pioneer who has helped redefine our notion of modern art with her belief in dance's power to teach, heal, and transform at all ages of life. This cinematic portrait blends recent interviews with counterparts such as the late Merce Cunningham, archival footage, including her establishment of the first multiracial dance company in the U.S., and excerpts of current performances such as "Parades and Changes" at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, to weave a stunning, inspiring account of one of the most important cultural icons in modern dance.
Breath Made Visible: Anna Halprin
2009
It takes place at a birthday party on a single fateful evening. Lenny, the birthday boy, is an insecure young man who has something to prove. After he's already had too much to drink, his cynical drinking buddy Willy goads him into proving his marksmanship by trying to shoot a bottle off his wife's head with a revolver. This black comedy is a farcical twist on the William Tell legend and on the true story of William Burroughs, who, likewise under the influence, tried to shoot a glass off his wife's head, missed and shot her dead instead.
Midnight Barbecue
1991
SENIORS ROCKING explores the artistic process of Anna Halprin, a pioneer of American dance, through the prism of a single performance piece. The film retraces not only the development of a unique performance with residents of two nursing homes in California, but also the growth of a sense of community when fifty people from various walks of life, age 65 to 100, join forces to perform together. Underpinned by Halprin’s conviction that dance and movement embolden people to express themselves and, in so doing, change their lives, the film shows how the participants give physical shape to their personal messages for posterity through a dance performance.
Seniors Rocking
2010
NRDuring decades of globalization, countless rural communities worldwide found themselves abandoned - from America's Midwest to Italy's mountain villages and places like Tatti face extinction. In this small Italian town, elderly residents lacked the strength to reinvent their fading world and lost hope – until outsiders arrived.
Tatti in the World
2026
NRDuring decades of globalization, countless rural communities worldwide found themselves abandoned - from America's Midwest to Italy's mountain villages and places like Tatti face extinction. In this small Italian town, elderly residents lacked the strength to reinvent their fading world and lost hope – until outsiders arrived.
Tatti in the World
2026
NRDuring decades of globalization, countless rural communities worldwide found themselves abandoned - from America's Midwest to Italy's mountain villages and places like Tatti face extinction. In this small Italian town, elderly residents lacked the strength to reinvent their fading world and lost hope – until outsiders arrived.
Tatti in the World
2026
NRAuguste Rodin's sculptures and Anna Halprin's creative process come together in this poetic film of dances in nature.
Journey in Sensuality: Anna Halprin and Rodin
2016
NRAuguste Rodin's sculptures and Anna Halprin's creative process come together in this poetic film of dances in nature.
Journey in Sensuality: Anna Halprin and Rodin
2016
6.311-year-old Silvia's life at home is consumed by her mother’s clinical depression. When no one will take the time to fulfill her dream to visit Rome, she runs away, determined to see it for herself. On a train, she meets a Roma girl, Emina, and begins following her through the streets of Rome to her gypsy camp.
Girl in Flight
2019
7.2Neely, an aspiring actress, gets a role on the popular soap opera "Heartbreak Hospital." Her neighbor, Lottie, a huge fan of the show, can't differentiate between fiction and reality, and her obsession and jealousy endanger Neely and the rest of the cast.
Heartbreak Hospital
2002
7.2Neely, an aspiring actress, gets a role on the popular soap opera "Heartbreak Hospital." Her neighbor, Lottie, a huge fan of the show, can't differentiate between fiction and reality, and her obsession and jealousy endanger Neely and the rest of the cast.
Heartbreak Hospital
2002
7.2Neely, an aspiring actress, gets a role on the popular soap opera "Heartbreak Hospital." Her neighbor, Lottie, a huge fan of the show, can't differentiate between fiction and reality, and her obsession and jealousy endanger Neely and the rest of the cast.
Heartbreak Hospital
2002
Café Mecanique is a short phantasmagoria about food, seduction, unfulfilled longing and love, set to Carla Bley's Musique Mécanique.
Café Mécanique
1990
Café Mecanique is a short phantasmagoria about food, seduction, unfulfilled longing and love, set to Carla Bley's Musique Mécanique.
Café Mécanique
1990
Café Mecanique is a short phantasmagoria about food, seduction, unfulfilled longing and love, set to Carla Bley's Musique Mécanique.
Café Mécanique
1990
Exposes the dichotomy between Exxon's elaborate publicity of its clean up operation and the actual effectiveness, giving voice to the people most affected by a tragedy, and the community that lives with the effects of the spill.
Living with the Spill
1991
