A heart-rending story of coming-of-age that thoroughly shatters the myth of Switzerland as a land of milk and honey.
12-year-old Simon lives in the bleak and dilapidated industrial valley below a luxury ski resort in the Swiss mountains with his young, jobless mother Louise. As it’s harder for a single mother to find suitors or an employment, she requests Simon to pretend they are brother and sister in public. Simon has another secret: every day, he takes the ski-lift to the opulent ski world above, stealing equipment from the rich tourists to resell to the local kids back down. As he partners with a crooked British seasonal worker, Simon loses his boundaries, which affects his relationship with Louise. They will soon have to confront the truth they had both been escaping.
»Of course the social context is quite obvious and strong. When we worked with Antoine [Jaccoud] and Gilles [Taurand] on the script, I clearly told them that the film should be a realistic tale which offers the audience a completely different image of the Swiss society from the one they are used to.« (Ursula Meier)
Ursula Meier
Born in Besancon, France, in 1971. She studied film and television at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD) in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and was second assistant director on two of Alain Tanner's films. She decided to take up directing herself and made some acclaimed short-length films. Her feature film debut, Home (2008), screened in the Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival. Sister marks her second feature film.