The Swiss tradition that’s a mystery even to those who celebrate it
“We do it because our fathers did it. And our grandfathers. And so on.”
In Switzerland’s Appenzell region, the new year is welcomed not once but twice: on 31 December and again on 13 January. On both days, groups of six men move through certain towns wearing elaborate handmade costumes and masks, ringing heavy bells and singing yodelled melodies as they go. The ritual, known as Silvesterchlausen, has endured for at least 500 years, yet its precise origins remain uncertain even to those who keep it alive.
That mystery is what drew the US filmmaker and artist Andrew Norman Wilson to the tradition. Rather than trying to solve its history, he immerses viewers in its textures: the intricate headpieces, masked faces, resonant bells and layered sounds gathered from the event itself. The result is strange, intimate and faintly uncanny, a film that treats tradition less as something to be explained than as something felt — a shared inheritance sustained through repetition, spectacle and communal memory.
Director: Andrew Norman Wilson
