DON’T LET THE SUN

Press & Industry Screening: tba
World Premiere: tba
Screenings: tba

100 min. / Switzerland, Italy 2025 / feature

Director Jacqueline Zünd and main actors Levan Gelbakhiani, Maria Pia Pepe, Agnese Claisse and Karidja Touré are available for interviews.

DON’T LET THE SUN by writer-director Jacqueline Zünd is world premiering at the Locarno Film Festival 2025 in the Cineasti del Presente Competition. The acclaimed documentary filmmaker’s first fiction feature is a delicate timely drama about alienation and the fragility of human relations in times of change.

Set in an atmospheric cinematic universe, in which the earth has heated up to an extent that people are forced to stay indoors, DON’T LET THE SUN reflects on possible social consequences of the current climate crisis. Without painting a hopeless picture, the film is a contemplation of how external conditions can affect and shape our inner worlds.

While shooting her documentary ALMOST THERE in Japan, Jacqueline Zünd discovered an agency that provides professional actors who can assume every imaginable role in your life, best friend, husband, daughter, or even mourners at a funeral. In an increasingly fragmented society, this agency sells an optimized form of any kind of social relationship, free from the threat of loss or disappointment – a seemingly bizarre concept that inspired her to tell the story.

SYNOPSIS
The heat keeps rising, forcing people to live their lives at night. They grow distant, in curious kinds of solitude. This is where Jonah provides comfort for strangers. As it gets increasingly harder to get close to one another, his commitment fills a void. Jonah has no trouble being someone else, acting out the lives of others. But when he finds himself in the role of the father for 9-year-old Nika, his life starts to unravel. As she slowly opens up to him, she stirs something in Jonah that he seems to have been lost a long time ago.

Jacqueline Zünd, born in Zurich in 1971, studied at the LIFS (London International Film School). Her award-winning documentaries were shown at many international film festivals such as Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, IDFA and Visions du Réel. Her documentary GOODNIGHT NOBODY (2010) won numerous awards such as Best Newcomer Film at Visions du Réel Nyon and an Honorable Mention at DOK Leipzig. ALMOST THERE (2016) premiered in competition at IDFA and WHERE WE BELONG (2019) at the Berlinale in the Generation section. All of her films have been nominated for the Swiss Film Award. DON’T LET THE SUN is her first fiction feature.

DON’T LET THE SUN features Levan Gelbakhiani (And Then we Danced,) Maria Pia Pepe, Agnese Claisse, Karidja Touré (Girlhood), and Cecilia Bertozzi as main cast.

DON’T LET THE SUN is produced by Lomotion, Louis Mataré (Switzerland), in co-production with Casa Delle Visioni, Davide Pagano (Italy), and SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen.
With the support of Federal Office of Culture Switzerland, Zürcher Filmstiftung, Berner Filmförderung, Kulturfonds Suissimage, MEDIA Desk Switzerland, Film und Medienkunst BS/BL, Migros-Kulturprozent, SRG SSR, Focal, MIC – Direzione generale Cinema.

World sales are handled by Sideral Cinema.

The local release in Switzerland is scheduled for 19.3.2026 by Filmcoopi.

Press material: www.marijanaharder.com

Production Company:
Lomotion AG
T +41 31 388 00 66
www.lomotion.ch
info@lomotion.ch

World Sales:
Sideral Cinema
Álvaro Samper
+34 603 653 352
www.sideralcinema.com
alvaro@sideralcinema.com

©/CREDITS:

Stills: ©