Keis Händli - kei Schoggi (2002)

In this modern-day fairy tale, Susanna Hübscher reverses the traditional roles: instead of waiting for her Prince Charming to find her, she goes looking for him. As part of her quest for the perfect man she appears on a date show on Swiss TV, consults a voodoo wizard in Paris, and interviews various women, including her own mother, about the real or imagined princes in their lives. Inspired by a 1970s Czech film adaption of the Cinderella story, she auditions men for the role of the prince in a remake she plans to shoot, and travels to Prague to interview the original film's star, in front of that city's famous castle. Hübscher's playful approach to the subject of searching for true love finds its aesthetic equivalent in the film's visual style, which includes a lot of "magical" appearances via jump cuts and abrupt transitions between times and places. She freely helps herself to scenes from the Czech movie, whose campy, nostalgic look is well matched by the picture-book compositions shot by her own crew. Hübscher's admitted seriousness about her quest is tempered by the ironic distance she achieves by adding a layer of self-reflection, as the film is not only about the search for the dream prince but is also the story of its own making.