Mateo Ybarra's hybrid documentary-fiction film "Small Talk" premieres at the Locarno Film Festival, offering a rare cinematic look inside Switzerland's last remaining etiquette school for women. The film follows actress Hélène Bares as Charlie, a student who enrols in a summer course to pursue a career in the luxury industry, while blending real footage of genuine students and staff with fictional narrative elements. Ybarra says the project deliberately blurs the line between documentary and fiction, prompting audiences to question who is truly "performing" within an environment built around social conditioning.

The school has operated for more than 70 years and now stands as the sole surviving Swiss finishing school of its kind, though it once belonged to a wider tradition. Bares took part as an authentic student, completing the full six-week intensive course alongside real participants, all of whom appear as themselves. The film explores themes of gender roles, class hierarchy and female empowerment, and is produced by Ybarra and Madeline Robert of L'Artifice, co-produced by RTS Radio Télévision Suisse, and sold internationally by Urban Sales.