Rolf Lyssy

Rolf Lyssy (born 25 February 1936) is a Swiss film director and screenwriter. He became widely known for the satire Die Schweizermacher and, in 2020, became the first Swiss recipient of the Zurich Film Festival's lifetime achievement award. In 2025, Die Schweizermacher still ranked first among the most popular Swiss films of all time.

Life and career Rolf Lyssy was born on 25 February 1936 in Zurich and spent his childhood in Herrliberg, where he was raised in a Jewish family of modest means. His father's parents had moved to Switzerland from Russia around 1900. He began working in film in 1956, taking roles in cinematography, editing and screenwriting on both documentaries and feature films over the following seven years. In 1966, he was co-cinematographer and editor of Reni Mertens and Walter Marti's Ursula oder das unwerte Leben. In 1978, he made Die Schweizermacher (The Swissmakers), a satire of Swiss naturalisation practices The film marked his breakthrough Lyssy later recalled that his emphasis on comedy had made him something of an outsider among Swiss filmmakers of his generation. He regarded audience response as central to comedy, describing himself as the first test audience for his own films. He also emphasised the importance of a film's identity, arguing that characters' backgrounds should be reflected in the actors' dialects.

Awards and honours 1971 – Jury Prize, Sportfilmtage Oberhausen. 2020 – Zurich Film Festival lifetime achievement award, as its first Swiss recipient.

Eugen heisst wohlgeboren (1968) Konfrontation (1974) Die Schweizermacher/The Swissmakers (1978) Kassettenliebe (1981) Teddy Bär (1983) Leo Sonnyboy (1989) Ein Trommler in der Wüste (1992) Ursula – Leben in Anderswo (2011) Die letzte Pointe (2017) Eden für jeden (2020)