German-born Swiss director Lisa Blatter first got noticed on the festival circuit in 2015 when, after a few years in the short film realm, she took part in the omnibus project Heimatland (screened in Locarno) alongside the likes of Jan Gassmann and Carmen Jaquier, among others. A year later, her first solo directorial feature Sketches of Lou was selected at the Zurich Film Festival, where she returned in 2025 with Traces of What Remains (Von dem, was bleibt), which should play well in arthouse circles.
Carla Juri and Dashmir Ristemi (the latter working with the director for the second time) star as Selma and Nori, a loving couple living together and looking forward to the next stage of their cohabitation as a family. One morning, though, Nori is confused and injured in a park, and remembers absolutely nothing of the events that led to the episode. His amnesia and Selma’s miscarriage are the root cause of increasing alienation in their relationship, with legitimate doubts as to whether their love can survive the emotional turmoil caused by the mystery of what happened to him.
Whereas her previous film was about two people falling in love despite their mutual loathing of commitment, Blatter uses her follow-up project to deal with the next step: what happens when a committed relationship is put to the test in a rather dramatic fashion? By refusing to give easy answers (the plot unfolds with the information reaching the audience at the same time as Nori starts piecing the events together), the director creates a world of layered, complex human emotions that rests primarily on the performances of the two actors.
Juri, whose role is inversely linked to the one she played in 2024’s Breathing Underwater (a woman who rediscovers herself in a shelter after she was found bruised and unexpectedly pregnant in the middle of the night), peels away at the strata of her character’s psychological evolution, making the most of the seemingly thankless and passive part in a context where her male co-star is, on the surface, the one with the showier performance. But by carefully keeping the emotional outpour in check, Ristemi joins her in creating a balance where both halves of the relationship have just as much to say, be it through words or other means.
Blatter and cinematographer Meret Madörin are the other formidable duo working in tandem for the film’s benefit, particularly when it comes to using the characters’ surroundings to convey the crisis in the making. Even in the initial moments of bliss, the couple’s apartment is framed in ways that highlight what some may view as the restrictive elements of domestic life, the microcosm of romantic fulfilment being a metaphorical prison of sorts. And when Nori comes to with no memory, surrounded by trees and leaves, it all veers visually into thriller-like territory, perhaps even horror. And while toying with genre is never really on the director’s mind, such a touch shows an ambition to commendably go beyond the apparent limitations of the small-scale project. The story and set-up may look simple, but the stakes are major, and the film delivers quite powerfully on the latter front.
Director, Screenwriter: Lisa Blatter
Cast: Carla Juri, Dashmir Ristemi
Producers: Magdalena Welter, Louis Mataré
Cinematography: Meret Madörin
Music: Hans-Jakob Mühlethaler
Sound: Peter von Siebenthal
Production companies: Lomotion AG, SRF Schweizer Film und Fernsehen
World sales: Lomotion AG
Venue: Zurich Film Festival (Signatures)
In Swiss German
83 minutes
