The Making of BEAT THE HEAT
BEAT THE HEAT has an extraordinary production history. The film is the result of close collaboration between Benjamin Weiss and Daniel Hitzig, both bringing their first feature-length documentary to the big screen. Independently of one another, both were present at the KlimaSeniorinnen‘s hearing before the ECtHR in Strasbourg on 28 March 2023.
A few weeks earlier, Weiss — as director of commissioned films — had interviewed the KlimaSeniorinnen’s board members and recognised the potential for a major documentary narrative. Hitzig, a former journalist working in communications for Swiss civil society NGOs since 2013, had assisted Greenpeace Switzerland with media relations around the case in February/March 2023. Only in autumn 2023 did Weiss and Hitzig team up to make the film — at a time when the KlimaSeniorinnen’s eventual win in Strasbourg was far from certain, and the scale of the Swiss political backlash to come was impossible to foresee.
What fascinated the producers from the outset was how the KlimaSeniorinnen had brought the climate crisis into public discourse as both a public health issue and a contemporary human rights question.
From left to right: Daniel Hitzig, Ramón Königshausen (Cinematographer), Benjamin Weiss
The film’s budget of just over CHF 300,000 was raised entirely without support from Switzerland’s three major public film funding bodies (the Federal Office of Culture, a cantonal film funding foundation, and public-service television). The result is a film financed by civil society: the KlimaSeniorinnen’s own association — now over 3,000 members across Switzerland — contributed significantly through individual donations ranging from CHF 20 to CHF 10,000, alongside support from Greenpeace, other foundations and private donors. Throughout, the producers maintained full editorial independence as authors, guided by journalistic accuracy and integrity.
The Filmmakers
Benjamin Weiss (director, producer, co-writer, b. 1982) grew up in Zurich and Ticino. After leaving a history degree at the University of Zurich, he worked as a film distributor, assisted on Swiss feature films, and directed music videos before training as a director at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Since 2015, he has worked as a director in Zurich, primarily on commissioned documentaries for a variety of Swiss clients and institutions. He has run his own production company, MattoGrosso Films, since 2019.
Daniel Hitzig (producer, co-writer, b. 1959) grew up in Zurich. After organising rock concerts and leaving a history degree in the 1980s, he trained at the MAZ media school and worked as a radio moderator, an ICRC delegate in Palestine and Iraq, a journalist and presenter at Swiss public broadcaster SRG, and later as media officer for Alliance Sud, Switzerland’s centre for international cooperation and development policy. He has run his own business since 2020.
Film Facts
- English Title: BEAT THE HEAT – KlimaSeniorinnen vs. Switzerland
- Original Title (German/French/Italian): TROP CHAUD – KlimaSeniorinnen vs. Switzerland
- Spanish Title: DEMASIADO CALOR
- Director: Benjamin Weiss
- Producers/Writers: Daniel Hitzig and Benjamin Weiss
- Production: MattoGrosso Films and danielhitzig.com
- Narrators: Miriam Margolyes, English, Susanne Zahnd, German, Sophie Gardaz, French, Graziella Rossi, Italian
- Language Versions available: English, German, French, Italian with respective subtitles.
- Subtitles available: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Swedish
- Running time: 77 minutes
- World premiere: 9. April 2025, Bern — the 1st anniversary of the ECtHR judgement on the KlimaSeniorinnen case
- Website: beat-the-heat.com
The Filmmakers would like to thank the following institutions for their support:
