Europa Europa Film Fest 2025 - Bagger Drama
Images courtesy of Common State.
With a storied background in visual arts and theatre, teaching those very subjects at Zurich’s F+F School of Art and Design, it is unsurprising that Swiss writer and director Piet Baumgartner came to his first feature film with a strong, visual flourish. We open on the extended arms of excavators, slowly and elegantly spinning against the calm, blue morning sky. Like the outstretched arms of a practised ballerina. In both script and mise en scene, Baumgartner starts strong and takes us with quiet grace through the hardest journey a family can embark on in the already award-winning Bagger Drama.
Set in regional Switzerland, the drama — with “bagger” in this case translating to “excavator” in English — tracks a small family over the four years since their daughter was killed in a tragic accident in their local river. The patriarch Paul (Phil Hayes) struggles to connect with his family, thrusting himself into the family business of renting and repairing excavators in their local township. Meanwhile, his son Daniel (Vincent Furrer) faces the triple threat pressures of grief, taking over the business, and coming to terms with his sexuality, whilst mother Conny (Bettina Stucky) continues to be paralysed by the loss of her only daughter.
With the first three years focusing on each family member, and the final with the family all together, Bagger Drama is a beautiful and honest reflection on the destruction loss can cause to an already fractured family unit. There are no guarantees here that everyone will be alright in the end and the grief will get less hard; in real life, it does not always, and Baumgartner explores this deftly and unflinchingly.
What was most striking about Bagger Drama was its photography. Baumgartner makes specific choices that can be surprising in their movement and beauty: a frank conversation captured through the open sunroof of a moving car, outside looking in. A carefully slow track up a table, the local men’s choir singing a wordless hymn. The static shots of excavators dancing a synchronised dance — machines filling in the emotional blanks of a loss brought about by Mother Nature. Bagger Drama is an understated yet powerful story of family, and how easily they can be torn from the inside out when communication and honesty have all but dried up; but there may be some hope yet, for tolerance in place of typical familial love.
Having already won the New Directors Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, Baumgartner has proved himself a deeply talented auteur to watch, reminding audiences of the fierce talent that Switzerland has to behold.
Bagger Drama is screening as part of the 2025 Europa Europa Film Festival, which runs from February 12th to March 12th. For tickets and more info, click here.