The TV app is here

Simple and safe

Our app for TVs and other devices with the Android TV operating system is finally here. It also runs on the new Swisscom TV box and, with a small addition, on all TV sets.

The key advantage of the TV app is that you no longer need to connect a laptop, tablet or cell phone to your big screen to watch our films. Once installed and linked to your cinefile account, it allows you to select, rent and play films directly on your TV set. We have divided our complete range into a handful of intuitive libraries in the app. Movies you have reserved, started or watched are automatically added to your personal watchlist.

How to get the app on your TV? Nothing could be easier if you have a Sony or Philips device or the Swisscom TV Box 5: Using your remote control, click on "Apps" in the menu bar and enter "cinefile" in the search by microphone or keyboard. Once the app is loaded, log in once with your e-mail address and your cinefile password.

We are aware that passwords are the scourge of the digital age. Give us a few days and the problem will disappear. We will also be adding further convenience features to the app on an ongoing basis from next week. And if you have any wishes or better ideas than we do, please write to us at info@cinefile.ch

But what if you don't have an Android device? We recommend the convenient HMDI stick Google-TV as an inexpensive solution, which can be connected to any TV and of course also combines the apps of all conceivable competitors from Netflix to AppleTV to PlaySuisse. It is currently available from Digitec & Co. from CHF 40 and will be even cheaper for our half-year subscribers from next week. Wait and see, the year has only just begun. 

PS: The TV app is also available directly in the Google Playstore via the link below and can be downloaded from there to any device with the same login. Not yet officially confirmed, but foreseeable is that Swisscom will also be upgrading older TV boxes to Android TV in the coming months.

Download the App

Streaming

Recently added o

Marie Amachoukeli, France, 2023
with Ilça Moreno, Louise Mauroy-Panzani c7.0

Cleo is six years old, has a myopic look and has been madly in love with Gloria, her nanny, since she was born. When Gloria receives a call and must urgently return to her home in Cape Verde to care for her two children, whom she has not raised, Cleo makes her promise to meet one last time. Gloria accepts and invites Cleo to spend the summer vacations on her island. A last summer that they will spend together, in Gloria’s family, before inevitably saying goodbye.


Stéphan Castang, France 2023, 108' c6.5
Christian Johannes Koch, Germany 2024, 105' c7.9
Francesco Rosi, Italy 1963, 105' c7.6
Giorgio Testi, Italy 2023, 105' c8.3
Anne Fontaine, Belgium 2024, 120' c6.6
Arnaud des Pallières, France 2024, 122' c5.4
Luc Jacquet, France 2023, 83' c6.5
Dominique Margot, Switzerland 2024, 97' c6.5

Series

Recently added

Die Hitler-Chronik
Germany, 2018, 1 Season
An uncommented montage of text, sound, photo and film documents from Hitler's lifetime (1889-1945), which form a panorama of everyday, social and political life in Germany and surrounding countries at the time.
Heimat – Eine deutsche Chronik
Germany, 1984, 1 Season
A work of the century in two senses: the groundbreaking first part of Edgar Reitz' saga about the Simon family and their fictitious rural village of Schabbach, which reflects the great upheavals from 1919 to 1982 on a small scale.
Death – A Series About Life
Norway, 2014, 1 Season
The human approach to physical death, the afterlife, death as a creative force, as a business and a political issue: a tour d'horizon that masterfully combines lightness and profundity.
L'amica geniale
Italy, USA, 2018-2023, 3 Seasons
The third and so far final season of the great Ferrante film adaptation: How Lila and Elena each go their own way, in which motherhood, professional life and emancipation are the common themes.
 

Spotlight

SUMMER MOVIES AND MOVIES FOR THE SUMMER

Spoilt for choice

What is a summer movie? There are two ways to answer this eternal, albeit not particularly difficult, question.

On the one hand, summer films evoke summer, that exceptional state in which the heat invites laziness and the vacations officially authorize us to do sweet idleness. And, of course, the counterpart to this state is the promise of summer with its long, unpredictable nights, its moral recklessness and laissez-faire.

But summer films don't necessarily have to be set in summer. They can also simply be so weightless, so gripping and funny that you can still enjoy watching them at midnight on a summer evening, just to relax and be entertained, or to put it more modernly, to chill out.

We have included both in our twelve recommendations for the summer and vacations: First, six films that are set in summer, celebrate it, but also ironize summer vacation or love stress or wrest a few more serious themes from the heat. Then there are six films that, with their wit, charm, sparkling suspense or music, represent a kind of cinematic prosecco: basically suitable for any time of year, but with the seal of approval of easy digestibility, they are particularly suitable for warm days and breezy nights. 

May the vacations and summer (finally) come! With these twelve films, you're all set for it. With a few marked exceptions, they are also available to customers with Swiss means of payment during their vacations abroad.

The streaming alternative from Switzerland
Cinefile is the Swiss online home cinema for a cinephile audience in the digital age. Fans of  international arthouse and independent films, classics, newer films and the latest films that could be, get their money's worth. Four and a half years after going live, the online platform features around 700 films, including almost 200 Swiss productions. The streaming selection ranges from upscale entertainment to rigorous art films, and tries to avoid the platitudinous and stale as much as the stultified and pretentious.

The curation principle: class instead of mass
cinefile is operated and curated by a handful of experienced professionals and experts from the fields of film journalism, film production, film studies, digital marketing and information technology.
"The basic idea of cinefile," says founder Andreas Furler, "is that here comes together what we never found at Netflix & Co: Films that were recently shown in arthouse cinemas as well as reprises and classics, so-called "big" cinema as well as "small" cinema. 
"We don't care about the common distinction between arthouse and mainstream," Furler continues, "as long as a film fully convinces at least one person in our five-person team and the others don't see any valid reasons, such as unmistakable racism, sexism or glorification of violence, that forbid its publication because we don't want to serve these ideologies. We thus try to apply a generous, diversity-conscious standard and at the same time not to cut back on cinematic quality, admittedly: the daily squaring of the circle.
Our goal is to offer not as many as possible, but as good films as possible on cinefile. Class instead of mass' is our motto. We are aware that every taste is relative. That's why we never select alone. Billy Wilder said that every single viewer in the cinema hall is possibly a fool. But if 1000 of these fools gather in the dark, he continued,  then "critical genius" would come together. We like this bon mot to the swarm intelligence, even if our team consists so far of only five cinephile fools. "

Every film with accompaniment and 5 minutes trial period
Because we are aware of the relativity of every selection, we give our streaming audience five free minutes to form their own impression before renting every film.
In addition, we accompany each streaming film not only with catchy plot details, stills, posters and trailers, but also with short reviews and bonus materials, such as we write ourselves or gather on the web. Planned for March 2023 is an expansion of these activities to a small online magazine, so that we can communicate our favorite films even better and national and international events around the film also something broader in the view. 

Streaming in single rental: The cheapest Swiss platform for premiere films
All
films on cinefile are available for single rental in Switzerland and Liechtenstein with the free registration "Basic" without any subscription obligation. With a rental price of CHF 7.00 for all premiere films, cinefile is the cheapest pay-per-view platform in Switzerland - with a subscription, see below, the rental is even cheaper.
The films are all available in HD and original version with freely selectable subtitles, partly also in German or French dubbed versions. Streaming is easy: If you have a credit card on file, each new movie is available with a click and is up and running in no time. Other payment methods will be installed in March 2023. Already now, you can also initiate an online transfer to cinefile at any time with an email to info@cinefle.ch , which will be transferred to your cinefile account free of charge as freely usable credit. 

The way to the big screen
With the Air Play function of Apple TV or a Chromecast plug from Google, you can now already transfer our films to your big TV screen.  Personally, however, we prefer the good old super-simple connection with an HDMI cable, which is not subject to external influences such as the fluctuating WLAN connection on site.
The cinefile team is aware that all these remedies are not the last word in wisdom and is working on TV apps with which the range can be accessed directly on the TV sets of the popular brands. The main apps will be available from April 2023.

Take 1, 3 or 5: The even cheaper flat rate subscription for the entire range
cinefile's unique features include the Take1, Take3 and Take5 subscriptions, which offer flat rate tariffs for one, three and five films per month respectively. The single movie costs CHF 6.00 (14% discount) in the Take1 subscription, CHF 4.50 (36% discount) in the Take3 subscription and CHF 3.50 (50%) discount in the Take5 subscription. The subscription can be adjusted to the current film appetite or canceled at the end of each of the individually selectable billing periods. For our subscribers, cinefile is 100% free of advertising at .

Last but not least: The cinefile cinema guide and your personal watchlist
Cinefiles
are cinema fans. That's why we have been striving for almost five years to publish the best-structured and most comprehensive cinema guide in Switzerland. With us, you can not only consult the country's complete cinema program sorted by films, times and cinemas and filtered according to your criteria, but also combine all cinema locations according to your needs and save the films you have your eye on in your personal watchlist, which is also automatically matched with your streaming favorites. In contrast  to the complete competition including Google, we also provide all program cinemas and open-airs with their and their complete offer - and of course we link you to the ticketing of every single one of the approximately 9000 weekly cinema screenings in Switzerland.

The cinefile newsletter and our presented digital hand
Our weekly newsletter in German and French is not just a PR tool for the  sale of our streaming movies, but also an info service with short reviews and hints on our favorite new movies and other events. So it's no wonder that after 4 years it has achieved ratings of between 45% and 57%, which is normal for digital marketing, but a minor miracle.
Any requests? Write to us at info@cinefile.ch. Our digital hand answers you during the week to 99% within 36 hours, on weekends (from Friday 14.00 o'clock - yes we like to finish early on Friday) until Monday 12.00 o'clock at the latest. If we do not meet this deadline, you will have a free movie to good with us from February 1, 2023.

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