Antoine Russbach
Writer-director
Switzerland
Of Swiss and South African parentage, Antoine Russbach was born in Geneva. He studied scriptwriting and directing in Belgium at IAD (Institut des Arts de Diffusion de Louvain-La-Neuve). In 2008, he co-directed MICHEL with Emmanuel Marre; the film won numerous awards and was selected for many festivals. In 2009 he directed his graduation film LES BONS GARÇONS. He then worked as a scriptwriter in Belgium until he returned to live in Switzerland in 2014 to write and direct his first feature film THOSE WHO WORK, that he shot in fall of 2018. The film premiered in the 2018 Locarno Film Festival and, has won best film and best script in the 2019 edition of the Swiss film awards. The film was widely distributed in France in 2021 and was well received by the audience and the critics.
Project
Those who fight
Diane is a young woman looking for a cause worth a fight. The police don’t hire ex- victims, her first MMA fight looks more like a beating than a fight, so she goes out and parties. She spends money she doesn’t have to pretend her life is worth more than it is and whenever the fridge is empty she takes a shift as a bodyguard. She protects wives of billionaires from the east, the south and the west. Sometimes she passes as their daughter, their sister or their friend, protecting them from non-existent threats while they spend years of Diane’s salary in minutes. Nora is one of them. She is not like the other Emirati girls Diane has protected, her style, her ideas are modern, visionary. When she kisses Diane at a party, Diane forgets the emptiness she feels, at least until dawn. How could someone like her have any interest in someone like Diane? Nora will be married to a man in her country, so Diane simulates an attack on Nora. To save her, to stay close to her, despite the consequences.
