Lionel Baier

Directing

Lionel Baier

Born

1975-12-13 (50)

Place of birth

Lausanne, Switzerland

Known for

Directing

Credits

47 titles

Lionel Baier is a Swiss filmmaker. He studied Art at University of Lausanne from 1995–98. In 2009, he co-founded the production company Bande à Part films, together with Ursula Meier, Jean-Stéphane Bron and Frédéric Mermoud.

Known for

Film credits

2010s · 3 titles

Series credits

Behind the camera

Stupid Boy poster
5.7

This coming-of-age drama deals with a young man, realizing who he really is and which things he will never do...

Stupid Boy

2004

Dog on Trial poster
6.0

Avril, an idealistic lawyer dedicated to lost causes, agrees to defend Cosmos, a dog that has bitten three people, leading to the first canine trial. She has no choice but to win the case, as otherwise, her unusual client will be put down.

Dog on Trial

2024

Block B poster
NR

How does it feel to be alive? Bloc B is the setting for nine encounters, somewhere in the satellite city “la Bourdonnette”, in the outskirts of Lausanne. The film was written for some of their residents and their neighborhood. In order to know what it feels like to be alive.

Block B

2019

Diary of My Mind poster
4.9

On February 27, 2009, pupil Benjamin Feller commits a crime which he has meticulously described beforehand in a diary entry. He goes to the post office to send the diary entry to his teacher before he shoots his parents and turns himself in to the police. His teacher Esther Fontanel tries to understand the events in retrospect. But as the journal’s addressee, she is increasingly targeted by the police herself.

Diary of My Mind

2018

Longwave poster
5.6

It is April 1974 and Julie Dujonc-Renens, young feminist journalist and the cunning Joseph-Marie Cauvin, leading reporter for the Swiss radio, have been sent to Portugal to investigate Switzerland’s aid to poor countries. Sparks fly during the bus trip with Bob, sound engineer approaching retirement. The projects financed by Switzerland prove to be calamitous and the workers’ revolution that suddenly breaks out doesn’t help, obliging our heroes to disregard first the radio’s management, and then their own codes of conduct.

Longwave

2013

Longwave poster
5.6

It is April 1974 and Julie Dujonc-Renens, young feminist journalist and the cunning Joseph-Marie Cauvin, leading reporter for the Swiss radio, have been sent to Portugal to investigate Switzerland’s aid to poor countries. Sparks fly during the bus trip with Bob, sound engineer approaching retirement. The projects financed by Switzerland prove to be calamitous and the workers’ revolution that suddenly breaks out doesn’t help, obliging our heroes to disregard first the radio’s management, and then their own codes of conduct.

Longwave

2013

Half & Half poster
NR

Philippe, a depressed young man, feels quite oppressed in his flat since his roommate has a new girlfriend. Irritated by her, Philippe destroys the fondue they were supposed to share. He finds himself wandering around the city, looking for someone to share his solitude. His nocturnal encounters will lead him to accept himself as he is.

Half & Half

2020

Particles poster
4.4

As winter sets in and P.A. sees the world shifting around him, he starts to observe strange phenomena in the environment. The changes are imperceptible at first, but gradually his whole world seems to be on the brink.

Particles

2019

Fedor poster
NR

Two young boys have stolen some expensive scarves and are being pursued. To get out of town, they hijack a young lady’s vehicle. She ends up following them as they flee.

Fedor

2016

The Parade poster
NR

A group of high school students meet to participate in the national parade with their school. A student, is bullied by the teacher because of her nationality. They react, defend her and the conflict becomes intense. To avoid the consequences, they decide to run away. They settle on the top of a nearby hill and spend the rest of the day there, as an act of escapism. Up there, they seem to have forgotten their anxieties and problems, as if they were in another world.

The Parade

2023

The Paris Opera poster
7.2

A behind-the-scenes look at the of how the Paris Opera is run under the direction of Stephane Lissner.

The Paris Opera

2017

Sirius poster
2.0

Five days before D-Day, the day of the last voyage of the Order of Sirius, a sect nestled in the Vaudoise Alps, Switzerland. Five days during which a community of 48 people, women, men, children, fed with esotericism and guided by a narcissistic guru, will test their faith and be deprived of their identity. Five days in which every gesture will be the last. Sirius is inspired by the massacre of the Order of the Solar Temple in 1994 in western Switzerland.

Sirius

2018

The Brain poster
6.1

Is it possible to replicate the human brain on a computer? To connect it to machines? Research aimed at understanding the functioning of our biological brain is being matched by spectacular progress in the development of artificial intelligence.

The Brain

2021

Continental Drift (South) poster
5.8

Nathalie Adler is on a mission for the EU in Sicily. She organizes the next visit of Macron and Merkel to a migrant camp. Their presence has a high symbolic value to show that everything is under control. But who still wants to believe in this European family on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Probably not Albert, Nathalie's son, an NGO activist who arrives without warning. He, moreover, no longer believes in his mother.

Continental Drift (South)

2022

Continental Drift (South) poster
5.8

Nathalie Adler is on a mission for the EU in Sicily. She organizes the next visit of Macron and Merkel to a migrant camp. Their presence has a high symbolic value to show that everything is under control. But who still wants to believe in this European family on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Probably not Albert, Nathalie's son, an NGO activist who arrives without warning. He, moreover, no longer believes in his mother.

Continental Drift (South)

2022

Dentro poster
NR

The prison in Volterra, Tuscany, is home to a unique artistic practice: It is within these walls that Armando Punzo, shut away for three decades with men serving long sentences, has created his plays.

Dentro

2026

Askêsis poster
NR

Two imprisoned brothers, with no dreams or realities, seek a bit of air to breathe. What must die suffocates. What wishes to live hopes. A tunnel opens in front of them. They fall into it, sink into it, forget themselves. A light envelops them, then eternity.

Askêsis

2021

Stealth poster
5.0

Lionel is a happy gay man with a great career and an open-minded family that accepts his loyal lover, Serge. But things start to unravel when he meets a pretty Polish immigrant who is about to be deported and decides to marry her.

Stealth

2006

Stealth poster
5.0

Lionel is a happy gay man with a great career and an open-minded family that accepts his loyal lover, Serge. But things start to unravel when he meets a pretty Polish immigrant who is about to be deported and decides to marry her.

Stealth

2006

No artwork available
NR

Respected Montana Highway Patrolman Connor McCluskey, an officer in his early seventies who, armed with his trusty analog camera, investigates two puzzling fatal car crashes. Following a medical evaluation, he is dismissed from the force. Concerned that Maggy Jones, a 70-year-old woman who owns land in the same area, may suffer the same fate, McCluskey continues his investigation on his own. Has he uncovered an inexplicable criminal plot, or is he slowly losing his mind?

Quiet Land

—

No artwork available
NR

Respected Montana Highway Patrolman Connor McCluskey, an officer in his early seventies who, armed with his trusty analog camera, investigates two puzzling fatal car crashes. Following a medical evaluation, he is dismissed from the force. Concerned that Maggy Jones, a 70-year-old woman who owns land in the same area, may suffer the same fate, McCluskey continues his investigation on his own. Has he uncovered an inexplicable criminal plot, or is he slowly losing his mind?

Quiet Land

—

No artwork available
NR

At night, the sky appears while the mysterious beast approaches. The astronomer and the hunter are pursuing the unknown.

Le ciel des bêtes

—

Prénom: Mathieu poster
5.1

Seventeen-year-old Mathieu Reymond lies brutally battered and raped in a field of reeds. It is only after his release from hospital that the memories come back, unannounced and fragmentary, but still so precise that regular meetings with two police officers not only allow the perpetrator’s identikit image to take shape, but also the chronology of the crime itself.

Prénom: Mathieu

2018

Prénom: Mathieu poster
5.1

Seventeen-year-old Mathieu Reymond lies brutally battered and raped in a field of reeds. It is only after his release from hospital that the memories come back, unannounced and fragmentary, but still so precise that regular meetings with two police officers not only allow the perpetrator’s identikit image to take shape, but also the chronology of the crime itself.

Prénom: Mathieu

2018

Swizzair poster
NR

A permission, an eternal return, it is in this suspended context, out of space and time, that the gathering of three young men happens, under the bright and suffocating lights of the bank district and the luxury boutiques of the city of Geneva, a symbol of a cold and radical social cleavage. Between masculinity, violence and ethic, everything seems to be made in order for the friends to deconstruct the universe, alone, at the top of the world.

Swizzair

2014

Little Swallow poster
NR

After their house burns down, 18-year-old Sofia and her mother Carla have to live together in a small room at The Little Swallow Hotel. Sofia explores the building and meets new inspiring people. A thousand opportunities seem to open up for her. Carla, on the other hand, has to get used to the idea of her daughter leaving. In this closed-door environment, mother and daughter try to find a new balance in their relationship.

Little Swallow

2021

À quoi tu joues poster
NR

Looking for a flat to rent, Benoit is staying temporarily at a hotel. Having seen that flats are more easily rented to couples than singles, Benoit comes up with the plan to have Jeanne, his neighbour, act as his girlfriend. Through this role play, Benoit will fall under the charm of this young lady who is keen on horse betting, and will let himself be led into an amorous bet that will ruin him.

À quoi tu joues

2011

Ricardo and Painting poster
7.2

Ricardo and Painting is Barbet Schroeder's portrait of his friend the painter Ricardo Cavallo, who devoted his life to painting. From Buenos Aires to Finistère, via Paris and Peru, this film is an invitation to dive into the history of painting, but also to discover the life of this exceptional man who, with simplicity and humility, always fully committed, to the point of transmitting his passion to the children of his village.

Ricardo and Painting

2023

Little By Little poster
NR

Noah a young teenager from Lausanne, is facing family conflicts and sometimes the law, but is driven by his passion for wheelies.

Little By Little

2026

Hunters poster
7.0

A man releases a huge balloon in the dark night… In the south of France, two men lead us on a strange treasure hunt through crisscrossing roads, armed with GPSes and maps. An observational and absurd road movie, where it is a matter of climbing up trees, celestial explosions and mysterious links between men separated by hundreds of kilometres.

Hunters

2019

The Venerable W. poster
6.6

A view of the religious tensions between Muslims and Buddhist through the portrait of the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, leader of anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.

The Venerable W.

2017

Low Cost (Claude Jutra) poster
8.0

Since he is 9 years old, David Miller has known the date of the day he dies. As it nears, he meets those he cares about for the last time, obsessed by the idea of learning how to tie a tie and by the the fall into water of the Quebecker filmmaker Claude Jutra. Shot with a cellphone over a decade, from Lausanne to Ouagadougou, Low Cost (Claude Jutra) is a small fiction about the market value of a human life in a time when everything is discounted. Life is priceless, death, however, negotiates…

Low Cost (Claude Jutra)

2010

Another Man poster
5.2

Psychological drama about a young, inexperienced film reviewer who falls for the charms of a well-established female colleague. A challenging look at the essence of film critique as well as an erotic encounter between two unequals.

Another Man

2009

Another Man poster
5.2

Psychological drama about a young, inexperienced film reviewer who falls for the charms of a well-established female colleague. A challenging look at the essence of film critique as well as an erotic encounter between two unequals.

Another Man

2009

The Safe House poster
5.7

An eccentric family portrait set during the May 1968 protests in Paris. A nine-year-old boy stays with his grandparents and uncles while his parents protest. When an illustrious guest seeks refuge in the apartment, the family’s dynamics change.

The Safe House

2025

The Safe House poster
5.7

An eccentric family portrait set during the May 1968 protests in Paris. A nine-year-old boy stays with his grandparents and uncles while his parents protest. When an illustrious guest seeks refuge in the apartment, the family’s dynamics change.

The Safe House

2025

No artwork available
NR

After the death of her father, Selina Weber seeks refuge in Pompei, a city still crossed by phantoms of those struck by the eruption of Vesuvius two thousand years ago. He had filmed her as a child, as a teenager. She had filmed him in the prime of life. In her thoughts, images of their trips surface—brilliant and precious fragments of summers spent together—but also those of the illness, in the cold light of the hospital. Filmed archives and streams of consciousness seem to become one.

Dans les ruines

2019

Émile de 1 à 5 poster
2.0

Two young men are playing in a bathtub. Then a third and fourth slip in to join them. They are called Émile and they are looking for their “perfect mother” when a fifth man arrives, the Émile who reconciles them all.

Émile de 1 à 5

2012

Émile de 1 à 5 poster
2.0

Two young men are playing in a bathtub. Then a third and fourth slip in to join them. They are called Émile and they are looking for their “perfect mother” when a fifth man arrives, the Émile who reconciles them all.

Émile de 1 à 5

2012

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

En face du bloc

2016