Zurich - Open Air Cinema (FilmFluss)

FilmFluss Waiting to Begin

I love Zurich in the summer – not only because I can swim outside (and that is a major factor), but also because it is the open-air cinema season and this has to be one of my favourite things in the world!

There are other events, but the two I always go to are FilmFluss, which is an open-air cinema showing by the River Limmat, and Salt Cinema (previously Orange Cinema), which is by the lake and is organised by said telephone company. Although they are each very different, I love them both.

FilmFluss usually has more “arty” films and has a cosier and more makeshift feel to it than the grander Salt Cinema. By day, the venue is a swimming pool. Well, sort of, at any rate. It’s an outdoor area where you can lie in the sun or go in the water. However, because it’s the river, the water flows quite fast, so you don’t really swim – you just get carried away by the water. Consequently, you can go only one way, you drift down to the end and then run back up to the start and do it all over again.

I’ve only been once and will never go again. There are these notices with pictures on, that I didn’t understand at the time, indicating that you should approach the end of your “swim” feet first. I’m not quite sure how that helps, but I guess it must. Anyway, I didn’t follow this advice because I just didn’t understand how it all worked and couldn’t fathom what the picture was trying to tell me. Consequently, at the end of my being carried downstream by the current, I was in my normal breast-stroke position. I arrived at the big netted fence at the end and to my horror the water pushed me flat against the fence and I became pinned to the barricade. The current was too strong for me to push back and I just couldn’t move. It was like being on one of those funfair rides where the centrifugal force pins you against the wall. My head was above water, so I wasn’t at any risk of drowning, but I still needed to get out! Two people had to hold out their hands to lift me up until I could get my feet on one of the rests. I felt like a right plonker.

Anyway, by night, for two or three weeks in the early summer, this place transforms into a cinema. It’s much nicer! One of its best features is that it has a covered section – it’s a wooden area with pillars all along where it overlooks the river and it almost has a churchy feel to it. It only fits three rows of people. They decorate it with strings of coloured lights and the seating is just those individual black, plastic seats with metal legs (some chained together to form a row). So it’s nothing fancy, but it’s cosy all the same.

Behind the covered area and up some steps they place rows of chairs outside going up the fairly steep embankment, so I imagine there’s not too much difficulty in seeing over the person in front of you (I’ve never actually sat there).

They construct a metal frame on the long wooden open-air walkway at the other side of the river that belongs to the pool and you watch them hanging what looks like a big sheet there in readiness for the film. You have to wait until it is dark before the film can begin, and the first adverts are always stills, which adds to arthouse feel of the event. There’s a bar in the outside area selling drinks, pizza, and burgers and there’s always a guy going round and selling ice creams (what’s the point of going to a film if you can’t have an ice cream?).

As in most Swiss cinemas, there’s a break in the middle. The film just stops abruptly and then off you toddle to have your cigarette (a surprising number of Swiss smoke), buy your ice cream, go to the toilet, etc. Each time, even now, this comes as a surprise to me and they always manage to time the break just when I am at my most absorbed in the film.

The sound quality is good and as background noise you have the trains going over the bridge and as background visuals you have bats flitting about in the night air. It all adds the atmosphere.

I really like the casual flavour of FilmFluss, I love the location, and there’s something quite exciting about watching a film outdoors.