As a director, Olivier Zuchuat is the author of the film essays Djourou (2004), Au loin des villages (2008), Comme des lions de pierre à l’entrée de la nuit (2013) and Le périmètre de Kamsé (2020), all of which were distributed in cinemas across Europe.
He has also directed films for television (Arte, RTS).
As an editor, he has worked on numerous feature films, mainly in the documentary field, but also in fiction and installations.
After studying theoretical physics (MA of Science, EPFL-Lausanne & Trinity College – Dublin) and literature (Philosophy and French Literature, MA in Arts, UNIL-Lausanne), he completed a doctoral thesis in contemporary film aesthetics at the University of Paris 8 (https://theses.fr/2023PA080023). He is a member of the ESTCA laboratory (University of Paris 8).
A researcher in contemporary cinema aesthetics, he has published Attraits de la durée. Plans perdurant et montage intra-plan dans le cinéma contemporain (Mimésis, 2025) and co-edited Montage – Une anthologie (1913-2018) (MAMCO-HEAD), Lav Diaz: faire face (Post Editions, 2021) and The Transformative Cinema of Lav Diaz (Routledge, 2026).
Since 2010, he has been teaching at FEMIS (editing and directing).
Since 2015, he has been a professor in the film department at HEAD – Geneva (HES-SO), where he was acting head in 2018-2019. He created the editing option there.
He is a member of the Swiss Film Academy and works mainly in France and Switzerland.
Academic CV: O Zuchuat CV Cinema 2026-01-25
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/fr/name/nm1904507/
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7872-2375
HAL: https://cv.hal.science/olivier-zuchuat