Simon Froehling and Marcel Gisler
Photo: Dieter Kubli Bilgerverlag
Simon Froehling, born in 1978, is a Swiss-Australian dual citizen and lives in Zurich. A graduate of the Literature Institute in Biel, he made a name for himself in the 2000s mainly as a playwright and poet before publishing his first novel, Lange Nächte Tag, in 2010. After a break due to illness, he returned to writing in 2017 as writer-in-residence at the German House at New York University. His second novel, Dürrst, was published in September 2022 and was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize. Froehling has received numerous awards for his other works, including the Network – Gay Leadership Culture Prize, the Audience Award at the St. Gallen Author Days, the Drama Prize of the Société Suisse des Auteurs and a Heinz Weder Recognition Award for Poetry. In addition to his work as an author, he is a dramaturge at the Tanzhaus Zurich.
Photo: Marvin Zilm
Marcel Gisler, born in Alstätten (SG) in 1960, studied theatre studies and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin. In 1985, he made his first feature film, Tagediebe, which was awarded the Silver Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival. All his other films, Mario, electroboy, Rosie, F. est un Salaud, Die Blaue Stunde and Schlaflose Nächte, have earned Marcel Gisler awards and considerable box office success. From 2003 to 2007, he wrote a total of 34 episodes for the Swiss television series Lüthi & Blanc. Since 1999, he has taught as a guest lecturer at ESAV (Geneva), écal (Lausanne) and F+F (Zurich). From 2008 to 2012, he taught film directing as a guest lecturer at the dffb (Berlin).
Film adaptation «Dürrst»
‘Andreas Durrer becomes a celebrated artist rather by chance – but as ‘Dürrst’, the title character of Simon Froehling's second novel, he soon threatens to destroy himself. Dürrst's journey from a young man who turns his back on his upper-class origins, through squats, countless parties, vernissages and beds mostly belonging to strange men, to a psychiatric clinic and back again is anything but linear. Life is a wild ride in which Dürrst occasionally loses sight of his goal, but almost never loses hope. This is the basis for the film material that director and screenwriter Marcel Gisler and writer Simon Froehling want to develop. Their goal is to write both an exposé and a treatment for the planned feature film during the double time, so that they can then start working on the screenplay straight away.’
