''Sonjas Rückkehr'' is a 2006 Swiss Drama film produced for the Swiss television SRF.

Plot (excerpt)

Sonja Knecht (Melanie Winiger) was sentenced to six years in prison for the alleged murder of her husband. Sonja travels to her hometown where the 28-year-old mother rents a room. She wants to see her son, watching him undetected in the schoolyard and learns from his mouth "my mum is dead" as the eight-year-old boy was teased by other school children because his ''prison mother''. The further contact is initially prohibited: Tim lives with her in-law parents Armin and Julia which Sonja has entrusted her then two-year-old son. Armin forces after another contact trial by Sonja, and that she has to live in an open living group as Sonja broke the rules of probation. To obtain the legal custody of her son, Sonja contacts Stefan, the only witness of the murder night and asks him to finally admit the truth.

Cast

Melanie Winiger Melanie Ann Winiger (born 22 January 1979) is a Swiss-Canadian actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss Switzerland 1996. Early life The daughter of a Swiss national and a Canadian of Indian origin, Melanie Winiger was brought ...

as Sonja * Marlon Altenburger as Tim * Urs Hefti as Armin Berger * Michael Finger as Stefan *

Suly Röthlisberger Suly Cabral Machado (born 29 December 1938), simply known as Suly (and sometimes referred as Suli), is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Career Suly started his career in Brasil de Pelotas, and arrived at Gr ...

as Silvia *

Renate Steiger Renatus is a first name of Latin origin which means "born again" (natus = born). In Italian language, Italian, Portuguese language, Portuguese and Spanish language, Spanish it exists in masculine and feminine forms: Renato and Renata. In French t ...

as Elvira *

Andreas Matti Andreas Matti (born 21 December 1959) is a Swiss stage and film actor starring usually in Swiss German language cinema and television and stage productions. Biography Born in Saanen in Switzerland, Andreas Matti lives in the municipality of Zü ...

as probationer Brändli * Herbert Leiser as father of Sonja * Oliver Zgorelec as Dejan * Fitore Aliu as Tatjana * Anette Wunsch as prison director * Philippe Graber as police officer * Hanspeter Bader as innkeeper * Eva Lenherr as supervisor * Anne Marie Hafner as Dora

Reception

First aired at the 12e Cinéma Tout Écran – Festival international du cinéma et de télévision, Competition in Genève on 30 October 2006, ''Sonjas Rückkehr'' was presented on occasion of the 42nd

Solothurn Film Festival The Solothurn Film Festival (SFT) is the most important festival for Swiss film productions. Founded in 1966 in the Swiss city of Solothurn, the annual festival presents a representative selection of Swiss feature, documentary, and short film produ ...

on 22 January 2007. The Swiss cinema magazine ''Cinema'' claimed "''a touching, spirited and deeply in the

Swiss Plateau The Swiss Plateau or Central Plateau (german: Schweizer Mittelland; french: plateau suisse; it, altopiano svizzero) is one of the three major landscapes in Switzerland, lying between the Jura Mountains and the Swiss Alps. It covers about 30% of ...

mentality founded melodrama that could inspire more than 600,000 spectators on a Sunday evening''".

Production

''Sonjas Rückkehr'' was filmed in April 2006 at locations in the

canton of Zürich The canton of Zürich (german: Kanton Zürich ; rm, Chantun Turitg; french: Canton de Zurich; it, Canton Zurigo) is a Swiss canton in the northeastern part of the country. With a population of (as of ), it is the most populous canton in the ...

and was produced for the Swiss television SRF in

Swiss German Swiss German (Standard German: , gsw, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no defined orthography for any of them, many different spelling ...

. For international use, the original title ''Sonjas Rückkehr'' may refer to ''Her Second Chance''.

Home media

The television film was released on DVD ( RC 2) on 6 July 2006.

Awards

* 2006: Geneva Cinéma Tout Ecran, ''Grand Prix for Best Swiss TV Film'' won ''Best Film'' for Tobias Ineichen.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sonjas Ruckkehr 2006 drama films Swiss television films Swiss drama films 2000s German-language films German-language television shows 2006 television films 2006 films Swiss German-language films Films shot in Zürich