Swiss Autofiction ‘Summer Drift’ Brings Friendship and Reclamation to ACID at Cannes
Swiss-French feature “Summer Drift,” premiering at ACID Cannes Saturday, May 16, follows Johanna Schopfer, a watch factory worker in Geneva whose summer obsession with restoring her vintage VW Beetle becomes a personal and political act of reclamation.
Directed by Céline Carridroit and Aline Suter, the film moves between documentary and autofiction, using reconstructed scenes and staged fiction to tell a story of friendship and identity.
Produced by Aurélien Marsais (Cavale Films) in co-production with Alter Ego Production, “Summer Drift” was shot on 16mm and set far from Geneva’s polished international image of banks, diplomacy and luxury. The film instead explores working-class garages, queer friendships and the hidden rhythms of celebration within the city. At its center is Johanna herself, crafting a version of her own life with loving naturalism.
Variety spoke with Carridroit and Suter ahead of the debut about building the film around autofiction, the importance of Geneva, and why shooting on film was essential to showing a trans woman in a cinematic space where she historically hasn’t existed.
How did you know observation alone wasn’t enough, and that you needed fiction and reconstruction to tell Johanna’s story?
Aline Suter: From the beginning, actually. There were practical reasons. We didn’t have access to certain places we wanted to shoot, and Johanna was still working full-time in a watch factory, so she wasn’t always available. We had to write in advance and know where we were going.
But more importantly, fiction is closer to Johanna herself. That’s how she tells her own story. Through her comics, through the way she speaks about her life, she always injects fiction. She stages herself. So adding fiction felt more truthful than trying to observe everything in a purely documentary way.
Céline Carridroit: When Johanna talks about her life, you immediately imagine cinema. You don’t really care what is strictly true or not, because the emotional truth is there. Her life is already full of these astonishing stories. Also, the car itself was unpredictable. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. We shot over four summers, so the writing also had to adapt to what reality gave us.
The return to mechanics becomes the engine of the film. Why did that become the central narrative?
Suter: Johanna was rejected from that world after her transition. She faced aggression and exclusion there. In real life, that return happened a few years before the film, but we condensed it into one summer because we needed a strong narrative line.
It became the engine of the film because it allowed us to talk about many things at once – identity, labor, class, violence, dignity – through something very concrete.
Carridroit: In the narrative thread, the car is also a metaphor for her transition. We used it in the writing as a metaphor for that transition. She hid her women’s clothes inside it. She changed the car visually, just as she transformed herself. It became a reflection of her body, her past and how people recognized her.
The people from that old mechanical world still recognize her through the car. That became very important for us in the writing.
Geneva feels like one of the film’s main characters. Were you consciously trying to reclaim the city’s image?
Carridroit: Completely. We live in Geneva, we grew up near there, and we know it very well. Most people imagine Geneva through diplomacy, banks and luxury, but there is another history underneath that.
In the 1980s it was one of the most occupied squat cities in Europe. There was even a saying: one bank, one squat. There is a history of resistance in the city, even if it is disappearing now.
We wanted to show the different worlds Johanna crosses: the factory, the queer spaces, the alternative places, the river, the garages. She moves through all of them very naturally.
Suter: We also wanted to film parts of the city that are disappearing. Geneva is changing very fast. There are huge new ecological neighborhood projects, and we don’t really know what to think of them yet. Coming from documentary, we think of images as archives too. We wanted to archive the city as it exists now.
Why was shooting on 16mm important for this story?
Suter: It was essential. We tested it four years ago with our first shoot to see if making this kind of documentary-fiction on 16mm could work, and it absolutely did.
It was risky because it’s very expensive, but that was also part of the reason. It forced us to make strong choices and commit to them.
And politically, it mattered to us because it allowed us to show a trans woman inside an aesthetic that is identified to another era of cinema, an era where trans people were erased from the visual narrative. There were rarely trans characters in those films from the ’70s or ’80s. The color and warmth were also important. Joy was important to us.
Carridroit: It was never just about making something look retro. We didn’t want to imitate an old film.
It also comes from Switzerland itself. Switzerland is a country that feels like it’s frozen in time. When people arrive, they often feel like they’ve gone back to the 1970s. It’s conservative, visually and socially. So the texture of 16mm felt connected to that reality, not just to nostalgia.
One of the most moving parts of the film is simply the warmth between Johanna and her friends. Why was that so important to showcase?
Suter: We love these three characters – Johanna, Rocco and Leticia – in real life and in the film. Their friendship is real. They are colorful people, and they bring so much life to the film.
The final raft scene matters because of that friendship. It’s not only about struggle or identity politics. It’s also about pleasure, affection, and the people who simply know you and love you as you are.
What does bringing the film to ACID Cannes mean for you?
Suter: I’m most excited because we’re going together with Johanna, Rocco and Leticia. If it were only the film, it would already be special, but going there with them makes it wonderful.
I’m excited to see how people receive them, and especially how Johanna reacts to all of it, because this world is completely new for her. She really does not want to be famous. That’s not just in the film, that’s true.
Carridroit: The whole process of making the film changed her. Watching herself on screen over the years became a way of looking at herself from outside. She would say, “Ah, I’m like this. I speak like this.” The film transformed her too. That’s one of the most beautiful parts of the process.
Directed by Céline Carridroit and Aline Suter, the film moves between documentary and autofiction, using reconstructed scenes and staged fiction to tell a story of friendship and identity.
Produced by Aurélien Marsais (Cavale Films) in co-production with Alter Ego Production, “Summer Drift” was shot on 16mm and set far from Geneva’s polished international image of banks, diplomacy and luxury. The film instead explores working-class garages, queer friendships and the hidden rhythms of celebration within the city. At its center is Johanna herself, crafting a version of her own life with loving naturalism.
Variety spoke with Carridroit and Suter ahead of the debut about building the film around autofiction, the importance of Geneva, and why shooting on film was essential to showing a trans woman in a cinematic space where she historically hasn’t existed.
How did you know observation alone wasn’t enough, and that you needed fiction and reconstruction to tell Johanna’s story?
Aline Suter: From the beginning, actually. There were practical reasons. We didn’t have access to certain places we wanted to shoot, and Johanna was still working full-time in a watch factory, so she wasn’t always available. We had to write in advance and know where we were going.
But more importantly, fiction is closer to Johanna herself. That’s how she tells her own story. Through her comics, through the way she speaks about her life, she always injects fiction. She stages herself. So adding fiction felt more truthful than trying to observe everything in a purely documentary way.
Céline Carridroit: When Johanna talks about her life, you immediately imagine cinema. You don’t really care what is strictly true or not, because the emotional truth is there. Her life is already full of these astonishing stories. Also, the car itself was unpredictable. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. We shot over four summers, so the writing also had to adapt to what reality gave us.
The return to mechanics becomes the engine of the film. Why did that become the central narrative?
Suter: Johanna was rejected from that world after her transition. She faced aggression and exclusion there. In real life, that return happened a few years before the film, but we condensed it into one summer because we needed a strong narrative line.
It became the engine of the film because it allowed us to talk about many things at once – identity, labor, class, violence, dignity – through something very concrete.
Carridroit: In the narrative thread, the car is also a metaphor for her transition. We used it in the writing as a metaphor for that transition. She hid her women’s clothes inside it. She changed the car visually, just as she transformed herself. It became a reflection of her body, her past and how people recognized her.
The people from that old mechanical world still recognize her through the car. That became very important for us in the writing.
Geneva feels like one of the film’s main characters. Were you consciously trying to reclaim the city’s image?
Carridroit: Completely. We live in Geneva, we grew up near there, and we know it very well. Most people imagine Geneva through diplomacy, banks and luxury, but there is another history underneath that.
In the 1980s it was one of the most occupied squat cities in Europe. There was even a saying: one bank, one squat. There is a history of resistance in the city, even if it is disappearing now.
We wanted to show the different worlds Johanna crosses: the factory, the queer spaces, the alternative places, the river, the garages. She moves through all of them very naturally.
Suter: We also wanted to film parts of the city that are disappearing. Geneva is changing very fast. There are huge new ecological neighborhood projects, and we don’t really know what to think of them yet. Coming from documentary, we think of images as archives too. We wanted to archive the city as it exists now.
Why was shooting on 16mm important for this story?
Suter: It was essential. We tested it four years ago with our first shoot to see if making this kind of documentary-fiction on 16mm could work, and it absolutely did.
It was risky because it’s very expensive, but that was also part of the reason. It forced us to make strong choices and commit to them.
And politically, it mattered to us because it allowed us to show a trans woman inside an aesthetic that is identified to another era of cinema, an era where trans people were erased from the visual narrative. There were rarely trans characters in those films from the ’70s or ’80s. The color and warmth were also important. Joy was important to us.
Carridroit: It was never just about making something look retro. We didn’t want to imitate an old film.
It also comes from Switzerland itself. Switzerland is a country that feels like it’s frozen in time. When people arrive, they often feel like they’ve gone back to the 1970s. It’s conservative, visually and socially. So the texture of 16mm felt connected to that reality, not just to nostalgia.
One of the most moving parts of the film is simply the warmth between Johanna and her friends. Why was that so important to showcase?
Suter: We love these three characters – Johanna, Rocco and Leticia – in real life and in the film. Their friendship is real. They are colorful people, and they bring so much life to the film.
The final raft scene matters because of that friendship. It’s not only about struggle or identity politics. It’s also about pleasure, affection, and the people who simply know you and love you as you are.
What does bringing the film to ACID Cannes mean for you?
Suter: I’m most excited because we’re going together with Johanna, Rocco and Leticia. If it were only the film, it would already be special, but going there with them makes it wonderful.
I’m excited to see how people receive them, and especially how Johanna reacts to all of it, because this world is completely new for her. She really does not want to be famous. That’s not just in the film, that’s true.
Carridroit: The whole process of making the film changed her. Watching herself on screen over the years became a way of looking at herself from outside. She would say, “Ah, I’m like this. I speak like this.” The film transformed her too. That’s one of the most beautiful parts of the process.