Cherubs
CHERUBS is a dark comedy about two exiled angels condemned to document every human suicide for eternity.
The elder, once a high-ranking seraph who refused to carry out the divine flood, has lost all faith in God and he’s now jaded and bitter.
The younger, cast out for a lesser sin, still dreams of returning to paradise.
As they wander through the wreckage of human despair, they question pain, faith and existence, between dark humour and profound reflection.
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Anna Pieri ZuercherDirectorGrave
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Pietro ZuercherDirectorGrave
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Toby McShaneWriter
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Pietro ZuercherProducerGrave
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Michela PiniProducerLa chimera, Electric Child, ...
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Olga LamontanaraProducerLa chimera, Electric Child, ...
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Richard SammelKey Cast"Gottlieb"Inglorious Bastards, Casino Royale,..
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Project Type:Short
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Runtime:13 minutes
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Completion Date:March 27, 2025
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Production Budget:25,000 USD
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Country of Origin:Switzerland
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Country of Filming:Switzerland
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:2:1
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:Yes
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Student Project:No
A graduate of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, Pietro shoots films in film industries all over the world, from the United States to Europe and India.
With 25 years of experience, he is considered one of Switzerland's best directors of photography.
As of 2022, Pietro has several projects in development as a director, Cherubs being the first, Grave his first feature film will go into production at the end of 2025. He's a member of the European and the Swiss academies, as well as of the Swiss Cinematographers Society.
Anna Pieri Zuercher is a Swiss actress, pianist, and director. She works across cinema, television, and theater, and is fluent in French, Italian, German, and English—performing seamlessly in all four languages.
In 2019, she received the Swissperform Award for Best Lead Actress for her role as Nina Favre in Double Vie, directed by Bruno Deville. Her screen credits include Hors-Saison (dir. Pierre Monnard), a Franco-Swiss co-production in which she starred alongside Marina Hands and Sofiane Zermani; Last Dance (dir. Delphine Lehericey) with François Berléand; Alter Ego with Gianmarco Tognazzi; and Paul s’en va by Alain Tanner.
Since 2019, Anna has starred as Isabelle Grandjean in the Zurich episodes of Tatort, Germany’s most-watched crime series with over 10 million weekly viewers. She is currently filming the next Tatort episode, directed by Claudio Fäh.
In addition to acting, Anna is developing several projects as a director and screenwriter. Her debut feature Grave, a dark comedy co-produced by Switzerland, Finland, and Estonia, is currently in development. Her short film Cherubs has just completed post-production.
CHERUBS is a dark comedy exploring the fragile nature of faith through the eyes of two celestial beings: a guardian angel who has lost his faith and a young angel experiencing Earth for the first time. Through their journey, we delve into three interconnected themes—faith, redemption, and the beauty of imperfection.
What drew us to this story is the tension between the sacred and the absurd. By blending dry humor with deeper philosophical concerns, the film reflects on what faith means today—whether divine, existential, or simply faith in one another. In CHERUBS, the juxtaposition of humor and more profound themes reveals the contradictions of the human (and angelic) condition.
Set beneath a bridge, the film unfolds in a stark, desolate space—a metaphor for the liminal state between hope and despair, life and death. This bleak setting contrasts with the film’s humor, heightening its balance between darkness and levity.
Cherubs is a film that remains in our line of reference. As with our script Grave, we seek a balance between cynicism and poetry. The theme of death has always been central to our storytelling—not as an end, but as a way to revisit the essential questions that define us.
At its heart, CHERUBS is about the search for meaning in a world where even angels are not immune to doubt.