COMMON GROUND
An essayistic exploration of isolation and belongingBy Jonathan Jäggi
and Tobias Kubli
FACTS
Country of Production: Switzerland
Language: Swiss German / German
Runtime: approx. 90 minutes
Format: DCP, 1.85:1, ColorCurrent Status: Post-production
Picture Lock: Autumn 2025
Completion: Spring 2026
LOGLINE
Lilo, a lone researcher with a cart full of tools, roams Zurich’s Allmend – a commons where she collects sounds, stories, and glimpses of shared life.
PROCESS
ALLMEND is a process-based cinematic field study. Developed over three shooting phases between 2024 and 2025, the film takes as its starting point a real place: the Allmend in Zurich. The documentary gaze is interrupted and refracted by a fictional researcher who both observes scientifically and shapes imaginatively. Between the production phases, we analyzed the material, wrote stories, and shaped the film’s structure. The result is a film that oscillates between fact and fiction, between detached observation and poetic construction.
SYNOPSIS
A leftover plot amid urban development, wedged between a highway, the Sihl River, and a shopping mall. Officially, the Allmend is designated as a recreational area; unofficially, it serves as a social refuge.Pulling a blue trolley, Lilo moves through the open meadows, talking to dog owners, recording conversations and observations. From this documentary material, fictional fragments, drawings, and stories begin to emerge.The Allmend becomes a mirror of social conditions. The conversations reveal dissatisfaction with the cramped routines of everyday life – but also a desire to preserve an open, shared space. Lilo’s gaze remains tentative. Her solitude is not personal, but emblematic.The space itself becomes a counter-model: one that is not sold, not evaluated, but shared. The Allmend becomes an experimental setup for alternative forms of coexistence – beyond ideology, but grounded in reality.The film observes without judging, inviting the audience to think along, to watch, and to take part.
LILO
Lilo is a researcher – or at least she pretends to be. With a blue trolley full of measuring instruments, a microphone, and a notebook, she roams the Allmend. She observes flora, fauna, people, and dogs. Lilo drifts between solitude and community. From the material she collects – sounds, interviews, drawings – she spins stories. The documentary world gives rise to fictional impulses, and fiction flows back into reality. Lilo moves in a space between field research and imagination – she surveys, collects, invents. The Allmend becomes her terrarium for exploring ways of living together.
CONTEXT
The project is inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction". Like Le Guin, the film does not follow a heroic singular act, but rather a practice of collecting, carrying, and enduring. Lilo gathers what is often overlooked: voices, people, images. The film follows her method of collecting – a mode of storytelling that doesn't culminate in resolution or punchlines, but finds meaning in the process.At the same time, COMMON GROUND draws on Elinor Ostrom’s research on the commons – the idea that shared resources can, contrary to the "tragedy of the commons" thesis, be managed sustainably. The Allmend in Zurich becomes a conceptual model, a lived practice of negotiation, use, and mutual care. Lilo researches this space – but she also becomes part of it.
CAST
Lale Yavaş as Lilo
Crew
Director: Jonathan Jäggi
Screenplay: Beat Schönenberger
Cinematography: Tobias Kubli
Editing: Tereza DaniellMusic / Sound Design: Adrian Würsch
Production Design: Isabelle SimmenProducer: Dominique Frey (Motor Productions GmbH)
Production: Zurich University of the Arts / Motor Productions GmbH
BIO
Jonathan Jäggi (1993) is a Swiss-Argentinian filmmaker. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Multimedia Production from the University of Applied Sciences in Chur and worked at the production company C-Films. He later studied at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Currently, he is completing a Master’s degree in Film Directing at the Zurich University of the Arts and works as a multimedia producer for the architecture magazine Hochparterre as well as a freelance filmmaker and artist. His debut film TRANQUILLO (2018) screened at the Hof International Film Festival and was nominated for the Prix du Public at the Solothurn Film Festival. With the expanded cinema project FRACTURA (2024), he performed as part of the International Experimental Film & Video Festival Videoex.
CONTACT
Jonathan Jäggi – [email protected]