Jule is 40, a single mother of three children aged 6, 8, and 10, and she lives in the canton of Valais in Switzerland: one of the most visually stunning corners of one of the wealthiest countries on earth. None of that helps her. Burdened by past mistakes and a society that extends no second chances to women like her, Jule is holding herself together with performance and determination, faking a homemade birthday cake, keeping her children laughing, and making choices the world around her would not approve of. The Courageous, directed by Swiss-American Jasmin Gordon in her debut feature, is a tightly wound 80-minute social realist drama that never announces its themes. It simply follows Jule, played by Ophélia Kolb (Call My Agent!), through a life that is precarious, complicated, and full of love that the system she is trapped inside has no category for. World premiere at TIFF 2024 in the Discovery section. International sales acquired by MetFilm. Released in Canadian and UK cinemas in 2025.

Why This Film Matters: Switzerland has a per capita GDP among the highest in the world, and the working poor who fall through its social safety nets are largely invisible in both media and political discourse. The Courageous makes that invisibility visible with precision and without sentimentality. Jule is not a victim waiting to be rescued. She is a fully complex person navigating a system that has decided her past defines her present, a logic that punishes the people already struggling the hardest. For a generation increasingly aware that prosperity statistics mask deep inequality even in wealthy nations, and one that has watched women bear a disproportionate share of post-pandemic economic hardship, Jule's story is not a Swiss story. It is a universal one, specific enough to be real and wide enough to recognize anywhere.