If you’re procrastinating about the type of music you’d like to dance to on your big Friday night out, then let Plaza be your procrastination destination. This Friday they have the Kill/Away Festival that will have a selection of dj’s and a live act playing music from across various genres from rap and house to electronic and indie. From the Paris record label, Ed Banger, will be dj and ex Daft Punk manager, Busy P, with label mate Boston Bun. Zurich rapper Skor will also be on hand for dj duties, as will Plaza residents dj’s Mannequine and Disco D. And to round off the evening, Zurich hip-hoppers Jas Crew will be playing their new album live. Now, if only you could decide what to wear.
Friday 11 pm, Plaza
http://www.plaza-zurich.ch/nu/events/event_list/

 

 

Truth may be the first casualty of war, but children are very often a close second. In the play, The Notebook, based on the award-winning novel by Ágota Kristóf, two actors from the British theatre group Forced Entertainment play twin boys who are evacuated to their grandmother’s farm in the Hungarian countryside to shelter from the conflicts of WW2. What unfurls is a fairytale-like story of dark humour and bleak horrors. It’ll be performed at Gessnerallee from Friday until Sunday.
Friday and Saturday 8 pm, Sunday 6 pm, Gessnerallee

 

 

When is a hotel not a hotel? When the beds have been abandoned and the rooms are turned into individual pop-up stores for local and international fashion designers, of course. This weekend sees the 25hours Hotel turned into the Fashion Hotel, as its lobby becomes a lounge bar with dj’s and fashion shows, whilst its corridors and rooms become the shop windows into the imaginations of a myriad of new and established designers and brands.
Friday 9 pm – 2 am, Saturday 1 pm – 2 am, Sunday 11 am – 6 pm, 25hours Hotel, Pfingstweidstrasse 102, 8005

 

 

Onedayportray.com is a new photo reportage website that is being launched, with a party, at the relocated Photobastei on Saturday evening. Onedayportray is the idea of two women from Zurich who, after studying and beginning a career in journalism, realised that the idea of in-depth and soulful reporting of people’s lives was not high on the media’s agenda. So for every subject of their photo portraits they spend an entire day getting to know them and their lives rather than just a short conversation with the results being published on the website. The launch party will be in the bar at Photobastei with music by Momo Love. You’ll also get a chance to see some of the initial subjects of their photo-reportage.
Saturday 5 pm, Photobastei

 

 

On Sunday it’s National Coming Out Day, the annual international awareness day for the LGBT community that was founded in 1988. Now this isn’t a compulsory thing, so if you’re straight don’t fret, but it is a day of celebration for what can be one of the most difficult things members of the LGBT community go through. To mark the day, Xenix are showing two excellent full-length movies and a selection of short films with LGBT themes. Fear of Water is a British film about two women’s self-discovery, awakening sexuality and the search for independence, whilst Tiger Orange explores two estranged gay brothers from California who struggle to reconnect after the death of their father. All films are in English or have English subtitles.
Sunday from 4.45 pm, Xenix

 

 

 

 

 

Michelangelo was a famous artist in the 16th century. And it's also an established Italian family-run restaurant in Kreis 3. It's one of my locals and the place to go if you want to get a little of that Latin flair  - white table clothes, great pizza and penne, Italian wine, large tables seated with entire families, buzzy atmosphere, and friendly staff. They just refurbished the interior to dampen the noise of all those happy eaters.
Da Michelangelo, Gertrudstrasse 37, 8003. Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 6 pm to 11 pm, Saturday 6 pm to 11.30 pm

 

 

You might have noticed all the faces on the advertising boards around town - the Swiss are electing our national council. This election takes place every four years. What's our job? If you live in the Canton of Zurich you get to choose 34 politicians representing your region in the Nationalrat (similar to the Congress in the US). The amount of seats depends on the size of the canton. For the Ständerat (similar to the Senate in the US) you get to choose two names. Each canton has two representatives, independent of size and population. The difficult part in this election process is the overwhelming choice of about 1000 candidates. If you'd like to know which Swiss party or which politicians actually represent your opinion you can fill in a questionnaire at Smartvote - in English - comparing your answers to those of the politicians.

 

 

 

 

 

It's a mixture of documentary and feature film, set in 1956, when Zurich was perceived as a pioneer in gay emancipation throughout the whole of Europe. «The Circle» (in German  «Der Kreis») It's a moving piece about two men who fall in love while the repression against homosexuals became increasingly intense. The film comes with English subtitles.