© simsim cinema GmbH 2026






simsim
cinema


simsim cinema produces independent films.












AUF EIGENE FAUST (WT)
3rd quarter of 2026  (short film)

Written by Flavio Luca Marano

Lighting technicians step in front of the camera to reenact the 18thcentury craft of saltpeter gathering in the Toggenburg. They light the scenes they then act in. The film moves between a staged past and a documented present, following the labour
of hands that shape both gunpowder and light.




Postcards to Thunayyah
2nd quarter of 2026(short)

Written by Jumana Issa

Visual postcards to my great-grandmother, exploring the differences and similarities between our lived. experiences, and the deep longing to return to our homeland, Palestine.



Students of Palestine
2024(short film)

Filmed and edited by
Flavio Luca Marano & 
Jumana Issa

Made during the 2024 university protests for Palestine. The film engages with lectures on Romantic English poetry by Refaat Alareer and protests in Zurich against the Genocide in Gaza.






Es muss (It must)
2021(Short film, 18.5 min)

Written, directed, and edited by Flavio Luca Marano & Jumana Issa

During the course of the same humiliating day, Silvia is fired from her job even though she is just a couple of years away from retirement, the police fine her during a traffic check, and the director of her church
choir takes away her solo part. During the rehearsal of the Ave Maria, Silvia decides to just let go in an act of silent resistance.

Festivals (selection):

- 74th Locarno Film Festival 
(Winner, Best Swiss Newcomer Award)
- 57th Solothurner Filmtage
- 44th Clermont-Ferrand International Short  Film Festival
- 5th Beirut International Women Film Festival 
(Winner, Best Short Fiction Film)
- 25th Brussels Short Film Festival
- 34th Filmfest Dresden
- 22nd Landshuter Kurzfilmfestival
- 36th Festival International du Film de Fribourg
- 51st Sehsüchte International Student Film Festival





1473m
2020(experimental short)

Filmed and edited by
Flavio Luca Marano & 
Jumana Issa

A film shot in the ski resort of Lenzerheide, investigating the snow machines and the space of a resort at night when everybody is inside and only the machines and a handful of workers remain on the wide, empty slopes. The light of the moon, the stars, and the snow machines become metaphors for each other. Nebulas and alien surfaces are found in the vicinity.






Dried Out, We Had Forgotten Our Speech
2020(short film)

Written, directed and edited by Jumana Issa & Tina Reden

A group walking together towards an alternative future, hoping to find new ways of being and belonging. It is an act of liberation, of collective empowerment and moment of gentle refusal. Inspired by Audre Lorde’s notion of a poetic revolutionary they are looking for "something outside of those walls, that so far had limited their ability to feel each other, touch and sense each other.








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Information

simsim cinema produces independent films.

Filmmaker duo Jumana Issa & Flavio Luca Marano have met during their studies at ZHdK at the Departement Film in 2016.

Their graduation film Es muss (It must) won the ZHdK Förderpreis (sponsorship award) for the best graduation film of the year. The film celebrated its world premiere at the 74th Locarno Film Festival were they won the "Best Swiss Newcomer Award".
Es muss (It must) was shown at other renowned festivals worldwide: including Clermont-Ferrand, Brussel, Dresden, Brest or at Show Me Shorts in New Zealand.

In 2022 Jumana Issa and Flavio Luca Marano founded their production company simsim cinema GmbH. They work there both as producers and directors, based in Zurich, Switzerland.

hello@studiosimsim.ch
Instagram 

Filmography

Auf eigene Faust
2026

Postcards to Thunayyah
2026

Students of Palestine
2024

Aufnahme 
2024

Cashflow
2023

Das Zehnfingersystem
2022

Es muss
2021

1473m
2020

Dried Out, We Had Forgotten 
Our Speech
2020

Martha
2018

Miro
2018 Festivals (selection)



Awards:

2021 – Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland), 
Best Swiss Newcomer Award - Pardi di domani - Concorso nazionale (Winner) for Es muss (It must)

2022 – Beirut International Women Film Festival (Lebanon) – Winner Best Short for Es muss (It must)

2023 – Arctic Film Festival (Norway) – Winner Best Short for Es muss (It must)


Residencies:

2023 – Locarno Spring Academy (Mentor: Radu Jude)


Lectures:

2026 – Co-organiser of the Swiss premiere of «Gangsterism» by Isiah Medina at Filmpodium Zurich & Lectures in collaboration with «Major Critical Social Practice in Art Education», MA Art Education, DKV, ZHdK.
Organised by Jumana Issa, Flavio Luca Marano, Píkqo Walker da Silva and Simon Wiener

2023 – Workshop «Off Frame: Filme politisch zeigen und sehen» at HyperWerk University of Art and Design Basel FHNW

2022-2023 – Seminar «Wie Filme Sehen?»
Im Fabrikvideo der Roten Fabrik Zürich






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