Vitus

Director Fredi M. Murer’s moving film VITUS was Switzerland’s official 2006 Academy Awards entry for Best Foreign Language Film and was one of the most successful Swiss films of 2006. VITUS introduces us to an incredibly talented young pianist and actor, Teo Gheorghiu. The film also stars the renowned Bruno Ganz, Julika Jenkins and Urs Jucker. By the age of 12, Vitus (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) is a highly gifted musician whose parents have high hopes for him in a career as a classical pianist. The daily pressure of hours of musical practice, his overprotective but well-meaning mother (Julika Jenkins) and his father’s (Urs Jucker) precarious financial situation lead the boy to seek refuge at his eccentric grandfather’s (Bruno Ganz) house. One of the most renowned directors in his native Switzerland, writer/director Fredi M. Murer has an acclaimed forty-year body of work, which includes Locarno International Film Festival Golden Leopard winner “Hohenfeuer (Alpine Fire),” “Vollmond” and “Downtown Switzerland.” Veteran actor Bruno Ganz is one of Europe’s most prolific and internationally distinguished stars. Best known to American audiences for his portrayal of Hitler in “The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Reich,” Ganz starred in Jonathan Demme’s “The Manchurian Candidate” and Fernando Girasoli’s “Bread and Tulips.”