Carnegie Mellon University
April 22, 2021

“My Wonderful Wanda,” Final Film for CMU Festival Season

Set in a gorgeous lakeside Swiss villa, director Bettina Oberli explores the microcosm of family relationships in this nuanced drama with tinges of humor involving class relations, family politics and a surprise pregnancy that throws everyone off-kilter

By Jolanta Lion

Stacy Kish

The Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival announced today that it will be premiering “My Wonderful Wanda” in the U.S. as the final film in its "Faces of Home" 2020-2021 season. This comedic drama centers on Wanda, a Polish caregiver who looks after Joseph, the stroke-ridden patriarch of the wealthy Swiss Wegmeister-Gloor dynasty. The family shamelessly strong-arms Wanda, taking advantage of her need to support her own family in Poland, offering her both low wages and a front seat to their explosive family dramas. When an unexpected turn of events thrusts Wanda onto center stage, she must learn to negotiate the tricky family dynamics of the colorful cast of the Wegmeister-Gloor family, which she does with aplomb. “My Wonderful Wanda” exposes present-day realities of class injustice through the empathetic lens of director Bettina Oberli. It is a movie of opposites — comedic versus dramatic, east versus west, love versus desire — only for these opposites to unexpectedly coalesce at the end in a unified and redemptive resolution.

After premiering at the Zurich film festival, festival artistic director Christian Jungen remarked that the film, “marks a new dawn of Swiss filmmaking,” combining the pleasure of “mainstream auteur cinema” with the standards of high art to create an experience that “is able to reflect who we are in an entertaining and intelligent manner.”

As one of Switzerland’s leading writers and directors, Bettina Oberli’s work has been showcased at festivals around the world. In her native Switzerland she has received more than a dozen awards and nominations. Her first film, “Im Nordwind,” premiered in 2004 and “My Wonderful Wanda” is her seventh and most recent film. Having produced music videos and stage operas in addition to film, her work intersects both genres and media. In an interview with Variety, she compares her career to a “butterfly... attracted to all colors.” 

Viewing for “My Wonderful Wanda” will be from April 23 to 29 with registration starting on April 23. The first 30 people to register with the promo code “CMUIFF” will be able to watch for free. Tickets afterwards will be $5. There will be a free, live discussion on April 29 at 6 p.m. (EDT) that requires advance registration. 

Purchase tickets and register for the live discussion.

This event is sponsored by FEMME and supported by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh, CMU’s Humanities Scholars Program and CMU's Graduate Student Assembly.

Visit CMU IFF for additional information and imagery.

About CMU IFF

The Carnegie Mellon International “Faces” Film Festival was created in 2006 and is a project of the Humanities Center at CMU. The festival prides itself on being the only international film festival organized and run by university students from across Pittsburgh. Films showcased focus on current and global social issues that create meaningful dialogue throughout the broader Pittsburgh community.