Claude Goretta directed “L'invitation” in 1973. For filmmaker Lionel Baier, born in 1975, it is like a “travelling companion”, to adapt Serge Daney’s expression. He feels it is definitive proof that a Swiss can be deeply Chekhovian. The young filmmaker goes to Geneva to ask his elder how he achieved the whoosh of water effect in the film, why attention to detail matters so much, and how to film great actors such as François Simon. This encounter with Claude Goretta – but also with Isabelle Huppert, Nathalie Baye, Michel Robin and Frédérique Meininger – leads one of the greatest of Swiss filmmakers to open up about his work.
