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A journalist is assigned to interview an eccentric anthropologist who has exhumed the skeleton of Jörg Jenatsch, a revered freedom fighter who was mysteriously murdered in 1639. Initially disinterested, the journalist begins to uncover unflattering truths about the national hero and experiences visions in which he seems to be witnessing events that transpired over 300 years ago. As he obsessively pursues the investigation, his personal life and his grip on reality disintegrate, drawing him relentlessly toward the fatal carnival at which Jenatsch was killed.

The formerly great Swiss hotel which Valentin's family owned when he was a boy has been emptied and is about to be torn down. He revisits the magical site's empty halls and ballrooms.

The gray rock of Mount Flimserstein. The luminous rectangle of a screen in an old Paris cinema. The glittering skyscrapers of Tokyo. «Daniel Schmid - Le chat qui pense» is a cinematic journey comprising a rich array of images and memories marking an outstanding career. The first feature-length film by Pascal Hofmann and Benny Jaberg documents the eventful life and cineastic legacy of an exceptional Swiss director of both films and operas. It spans his formative childhood in a Belle Epoque hotel in the Grisons mountains, and follows his escape from the peaceful Alps to turbulent 1960s Berlin, his love for the cinema, and his encounters with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It delves into the worldly nightlife of 1970s Paris, and shows Schmid filming on location in Morocco, Portugal, and his native Grisons. «Daniel Schmid - Le chat qui pense» traces the eventful life of a gifted artist. It is a film about arriving, time and again, and about taking leave, for ever. «Daniel Schmid - Le chat qui pense» lets us hear several of his loyal companions comment on this exceptional artist, among others his muse Ingrid Caven, his cameraman Renato Berta, and close friends like director Werner Schroeter, actress Bulle Ogier, and film scholar Shiguéhiko Hasumi. And we hear Daniel Schmid himself - in a cinematic exploration of his life and work carried by his own voice and view of the world. A world situated between reality and fiction.