Introducing Otherlands
A new name for a new beginning.
A different landscape inspires different stories. A different path opens up a different way of seeing.
What began as a project exploring the lives and perspectives of edge-dwellers in the Portuguese mountains slowly revealed a wider way of working creatively.
Serra is its own body of work that was rooted in place. From that process emerged something broader: Otherlands — a framework for place-specific bodies of work. The first of these new chapters is Grischun.
In practical terms, the direction also changed because of circumstance. Bureaucratic and financial challenges in Portugal made it impossible to continue. Brexit made it difficult to move elsewhere. After many months of paperwork and uncertainty, Switzerland has become a new base.
Serra is not over. It’s in an incubation period. A seed in the ground waiting for the right moment to germinate. I can’t say when that is, however. But I will know when the time is right.
The Current Focus
Since I first visited Switzerland, I’ve been exploring angles for stories. The discovery of, and relationship developed with Roger Rominger, the knifemaker and farmer from Val Fex, inspired a new project:
Grischun.
A living archive of identity, memory, and place through moving image — Grischun is a cinematic exploration of Romansh identity in the high alpine landscapes of southeastern Switzerland.
Through intimate portraits of individuals whose lives remain intertwined with the land, the film reveals a culture that speaks not only through words, but through gesture, craft, and rhythm.
The first chapter, Fexer, follows Roger — a blacksmith from the Fex Valley, whose forge has become both workshop and sanctuary. As he speaks in Romansh about his family’s connection to the valley — and his father’s departure when life there became unsustainable — a wider story emerges: of continuity, adaptation, loss, and quiet resilience.
Each story in the series contributes to a collective portrait of Romansh culture today. By preserving the voices, faces, and landscapes that define this region, Grischun becomes a living record — a bridge between generations, languages, and ways of seeing.
The format will be different. Films will not be released online until they have been submitted to festivals and screened locally. In the meantime, previews will continue to appear on Instagram, and written stories during research and development on Substack.
The Purpose
Otherlands has been established as a Swiss-based association (Verein) in order to realise these projects.
We function as a non-profit initiative, facilitating the creation of documentary films, writing and photography about people, places, and the ways life is lived within particular landscapes.
The intention is for these projects to be developed in collaboration with filmmakers, writers, craftspeople, historians, and local communities, for the benefit of the places in which they are based.
Rather than one ongoing project, we work through place-specific bodies of work — each named for where they’re rooted.
Each project moves at its own pace and has its own character, but they share the same underlying curiosity: what does it mean to live closely with a particular place, and what can film do to hold that honestly?
Otherlands is the thread that connects them.
To learn more, visit our new website.
Thanks for following the journey, and stay tuned for the Prologue for Fexer, coming soon.
- Adrian
Serra / Grischun
Co-founder of Otherlands
An interesting project.