The Ticino Film Commission receives the Oertli Foundation Encouragement Award

Against the backdrop of the 59th Solothurn Film Days, on Thursday 18 January 2024, the Ticino Film Commission was awarded the Oertli Foundation's encouragement prize of CHF 15,000.

Since 1967, the Oertli Foundation has been committed to the common understanding of the country's various linguistic regions and to national unity by supporting cultural exchanges and contributing financially to projects that promote dialogue between the German-, French-, Italian- and Romansh-speaking Swiss.

"The objective of the encouragement award," said Marco Baschera, vice-president of the Oertli Foundation, "is to promote, thanks to initial funding, the continuation and expansion of a cultural project that promotes understanding between the different parts of Switzerland. The Ticino Film Commission is being supported to make films from Italian-speaking regions more accessible in other parts of the country and thus promote the cultural exchange between ways of thinking and living beyond language barriers".

"The screening of films in the various national languages is an element of paramount importance, which as the Ticino Film Commission,' said TFC president Claudio Franscella, 'we try to support through the Fund for the Promotion of the Italian Language in Swiss Cinema, part of which is dedicated to the subtitling. Thanks also to this fund, we are happy to be able to help bring Italian-language films subtitled in French and German and vice versa to audiences throughout Switzerland."

It is therefore with great pleasure that the Ticino Film Commission is honoured to accept the Oertli Foundation's prize of encouragement, as it is well aware of the value of this recognition awarded in the past to organisations that have worked and distinguished themselves in promoting contacts and dialogue between the country's linguistic regions.