There will be an Easter Market in Nyon on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th April from 08:30 -18:30 along the Rue de Rive. Stands, artisanal products, workshops for children.

If you fancy a TGIF drink, why not head off the pop-up bars and restaurant at the heart of Nyon's film festival ? There's a good atmosphere both inside and outside with music, food, and food trucks etc. The festival officially finishes tonight the 12th April, however there will be a chance to see the award winning films on Saturday the 13th as they will be screened in venues across Nyon from 10:30 until 20:30 (the names of the winning films will be announced on the Visions du Réel website after the closing ceremony - ( check this link here at around 20:45 ). There will be a final summing up the festival on this site next week.

Inter Soccer Football Camps over Easter in Nyon Children aged 3 to 13 can take part in InterSoccer Easter Camps at Colovray Sports Centre in Nyon from 15 – 18 April . These holiday camps can be booked for a full week, or for single days. For 5 to 13-year-olds, there will be a full day of activities with seasonal themed games, small sided matches, and lots of opportunities to improve skills and coordination, while having fun and making new friends. Parents can drop their children off from 08:30, for a 10:00 start and 16:00 finish. Photo above  © Luis Faustino There are also Mini Camps for 3 to 5-year-olds, with similar activities packed into a morning session from 10-12:30 (with drop offs from 09:20). InterSoccer Camps offer a perfect introduction to football for boys and girls playing for the first time. For children who have already attended football classes, they present a chance to improve technical skills and gain match playing experience. All abilities are very welcome and everyone will be made to feel part of the team, whether they come for just one day, or the whole week. Camps are taught mainly in English, with many coaches and most children bilingual. Photo above  © Luis Faustino There will also be InterSoccer Summer Camps in Nyon from 22 to 26 July and 12 to 16 August . Other InterSoccer Camps will take place in Geneva, Versoix, Etoy, Lausanne, Basel, Zug and Zurich. After Easter, InterSoccer will run Mini Soccer courses for 3 to 6-year-olds at Ecole Montessori Deux Mille Feuilles, La Rippe on Mondays from 15:15-16:15, starting 29 April. To book any of their camps or courses, visit the InterSoccer website .

The Visions du Réel film festival in Nyon (currently on until the 12th April) often programmes back to back screenings of films by different directors that have some link with each other, either in genre, style or content.  On Wednesday afternoon in the Salle Colombière there were some interesting pairings. "Vaarheim" means our house in the Shetland dialect and this film is shot in the Out Skerries, a tiny archipelago  to the east of the Shetland Islands. The local fish farm, the island’s main economic resource has gone  bankrupt, the secondary school has closed and around 20 inhabitants are left on the island. The film focuses on Julie Powis Arthur, one of the women who remains on the island. Her husband has left to work on the mainland and her eldest child has to leave to attend school. She is alone with her youngest children. The film follows her day-to-day life and shows the difficulties that she encounters. We see a warm hearted woman operating under difficult circumstances (and difficult weather), but also under some magnificent skies. The director was lucky enough to be on site when the Northern Lights appeared in the sky. This film is a lovely portrait of family life on an island in the middle of the North Sea and will be screened again on T hursday at 10:15 in the Cinema Capitole Fellini. Update - 10 March 2021. There was a second film paired with the above film. We have been asked to remove all mention of this film by Grenade, the production company Another interesting pairing of films on Wednesday was "On the Art of Set Design" by Jan Ijäs, followed by "God" by Christopher Murray, Israel Pimentel and Josefina Buschmann. This latter film about the Pope's visit to Chile in 2018 is a funny, clever, fascinating film (it was rather ironic that its World Premiere on Wednesday was held in a building belonging to Nyon's Catholic church).  This film not only focusses on the fervent worshippers eagerly awaiting the papal visit, but we also see different groups such as the LGBTIQ community, the pro-abortion lobby, the Mapuche indigenous people and others who object to and protest his arrival. We also get to see the commercialisation and marketing of the visit, along with the sheer amount of preparation involved to make sure all is ready and safe in the three areas of the country that Pope Francis will touch down. The noise and ballyhoo in this fast paced film are tempered with quieter touching moments such as when an elderly man (who is dying and in a hospice), talks to his wife about their joint faith and God.  An excellent film. These two films will be screened again on Thursday at 12:00 i n the Capitole Fellini. Photos above and in banner - courtesy Visions du Réel.

The Visions du Réel film festival is well underway, however, there are still four full days to go of documentaries to be seen in both Nyon and Gland. One of the interesting parts of this festival is to be able to listen to the filmmakers discuss their films after they have been screened with members of the public. On Sunday there was a packed house in the Grand Salle in Nyon to see Christian Labhart's "Passion - between Revolt and Resignation" , a film tackling capitalism, global warming, war, overconsumption, refugee crises, and inequality. The audience had many questions for the filmmaker from what his main objective was for making the film, to the choice of music that underscored it (St. Matthew Passion by J.S. Bach). Photo above - C.N Pollard - Filmmaker Christian Labhart discussing his film with the audience On Monday there was a fascinating interview with the protagonist after a screening of "Naïma", a wonderful film focussing on a Moroccan woman living in Bienne. In the film we see her trying to build bridges in her community, dedicating thousands of hours of her time in volunteering, encouraging dialogue, working with troubled teenagers, taking Muslim teenagers to a synagogue to teach them about different religions, attending endless meetings, encountering Swiss bureaucracy, all to help integration whilst managing a family of her own. Note: this film will be shown again on Tuesday 9th April at 12:00 . Photo above C. N Pollard - "Naïma", the protagonist in the film and the producers.

Visions du Réel, Nyon's documentary film festival takes a look at the Americas and Australia. Here are four films being shown on Saturday 6th, Sunday 7th, Monday 8th, and Wednesday 10th April in Nyon and Gland. Dreams of the Outback Saturday 6 April, 18:30, Grande Salle and Sunday 7 April, 10:15, Grande Salle. Click here In the region of Kimberley, Jannik Splidsboel sets off to encounter members of the aboriginal community. Some have painfully erased their culture while others are trying to find it again and keep it alive. Golden Age Sunday 7 April, 18:15, Théâtre de Marens, Monday 8 April, 10:00, Colombière and Tuesday 9 April, 18:00, Théâtre de Grand-Champ, Gland. Click here.  Who said that old age has to be boring? Welcome to the Palace, in Miami, a retirement home where the wealthy residents are pampered in an abundance of parties, luxury, and entertainment. Photo above from Golden Age - courtesy Visions du Réel. What you Gonna do when the World's on fire? Monday 8 April, 20:45, Grande Salle and Thursday 11 April, 21:15, Capitole Leone, Nyon.  Click here Summer of 2017. A tidal wave of police killings has hit the African-American community. A group of Black Panthers seeks justice. But racism and violence are engrained in the cogs of white justice. Pahokee Wednesday 10 April, 18:00, Grande Salle et Thursday 11 April, 10:00, Grande Salle Nyon. Click here  A detailed and nuanced portrait of Pahokee, a small rural town located in the Florida Everglades. A community tightly knit together that struggles with financial insecurities and a bleak future. A powerful portrait of a forgotten part of the United States.

A series of courses will take place in Geneva and Lausanne from the  23-26 April  for children and students aged 8-18 to experience digital game development and learn the language of code. Following a  Cybersecurity teen weekend  in March at Google (see photo above)   Techspark Academy is now offering the following Easter courses: • Hacker Mode • Code in Python – Teen • Code in Python – Advanced • Animation & Game Design – Junior English-French bilingual  EPFL  instructors will lead sessions that allow for plenty of hands-on practice with a 1:5 instructor/student ratio. These  courses  will be run by the Tech Spark Academy. The academy’s  concept is to spark the digital learning process by giving hands-on exposure to the same computer code with which runs the applications that we all use every day. Sessions are taught in English, the language of code. There is bilingual one-on-one support - all instructors speak English-French at the Lausanne and Geneva camps. There is also a parent "Open Door" event on the last day of each camp. To register, click here Any questions? Email –  marta@techsparkacademy.ch . Other courses run by  Tech Spark  are “Robotics" "Create in 3D", "App development" and more.  See link here

If you love chocolate you'll love Festichoc! This two-day free festival in Versoix has chocolate stands galore, artisanal chocolate makers, sculptures in chocolate, competitions, a treasure hunt for children, little trains that run during the festival, lots of fun for the family and chocoholics! This festival is very popular, taking public transport is recommended. More details here See video below.

There will be a repair café in Nyon on Saturday 6th April at the L'Asse déchèterie (recycling centre) at Chemin du Marais 2. This is an ideal chance to get a small item repaired or revamped. There will be volunteers on hand to fix items such as lamps, telephones, battery operated items, suitcases, toys etc. Reserve by the 5th April . Tel 079 2725220. One item per family. This event is organised by Demain La Côte and the commune of Nyon.

"Miss Daisy" , a local business with a flower subscription service ( see our previous article here ) is organising a Spring/Easter pop-up in Céligny on Friday the 5th from 10:00 -19:00 and Saturday 6th April from 10:00 -17:00. Easter arrangements to order, Spring flowers, candles lots to cheer up a garden table! Details in the poster below.

Colin Stetson, musician, saxophonist from the U.S will be performing at the Temple of Nyon on Monday 1st of April at 20:00. He is a  regular collaborator with Arcade Fire, Bon Iver etc.  Seated event. This is a  Usine à Gaz production (the Usine à Gaz is Nyon's music/cultural centre and its building is currently being enlarged). Music events are being held in other venues around the town for the moment. Visions du Réel - Nyon's prestigious documentary film festival celebrates its 50th edition this year and opens on the 4th April and continues until Saturday 13th. This festival is open to the public, and many films are in English or subtitled in English. There will be a pop-up restaurant, a bar at the heart of the festival just near Place de Perdtemps.  The full programme is now online in English and tickets can be bought in advance online. More info on this festival and the films coming soon here. To kick off the festival there will be two free screenings on the 4th April of " When Tomatoes Met Wagner" by Greek director Marianna Economou. This is a humorous story of two ingenious Greek cousins and five village grannies, who take on the food market with their organic tomatoes. See trailer below. Note: the screening at the Théâtre de Marens is now sold out but there are tickets still available at 20:00 in the Grande Salle. Tickets are free for this event, but seats must be reserved. Click here.   There will be a third screening on Wednesday 10 April at the Théâtre de Grand-Champ in Gland.

Paléo Festival revealed the line-up for the 44th edition of the festival on a sunny spring morning that hopefully promises great weather for the festival which will take place from the 23rd to 28th July. Paléo has managed to grow over nearly half a century and turn from a small local gathering to one of the major outdoor festivals in Europe. In an economic and cultural context where more and more concerts and festivals happen everywhere, Paléo’s recipe for success has kept them going year after year, offering a variety of concerts from global pop and rock stars to new and quirky bands. Finding a way to create new generations of festival-goers whilst pleasing the faithful fans who have been supporting the festival since it started 44 years ago is a delicate task, and it is with this mission in mind that the team in charge of creating the line-up for the festival work away secretly for most of the year. Giants of rock and pop Paléo can boast its share of megastars that will please older and younger generations alike, with new-wave legends The Cure who will bring their 40th-anniversary tour to the grounds of l’Asse, or the younger pop sensations Twenty One Pilots, who have been filling stadiums around the world for the past couple of years. Another giant who will please the crowds in Nyon will be Lana Del Rey and her funky electro-pop. French revival This year’s line-up sees a big increase in the number of bands and musicians who sing in French. As Jacques Monnier, one of the main people in charge of programming for the festival explained, this is a testimony to the vitality of the French-speaking music scene, and the apparition of new generations of musicians who don't see singing in their native language as an unfashionable thing.  From up and coming artists who bend genres between pop, hip-hop and rock like Angèle, Hoshi or Aloise Sauvage, to bands who have already made their reputation like Christine and the Queens- who were nominated by the Guardian as the best band of the year-, Patrick Bruel or M, l'Asse will resonate with songs in French this summer. Maple-flavored french Another reason can explain the important number of French-speaking band, as this year’s Village du Monde – the area of the festival dedicated to world music and conceived as a « festival inside the festival » will highlight the vibrant and exciting Quebec music scene, alongside food stalls that will probably be stockpiled with poutine, maple syrup, smoked salmon and other gastronomical delicacies from "la belle province". Les Cowboys Fringants will bring their festive tunes back to the festival for the third time - last time they came they were voted best concert of the festival by the volunteers! - and even if your French isn't up to touch, their contagious energy and good vibes will brighten you up. Les Trois accords are another band who sing in French, their light and pop songs full of absurd lyrics about unicorns and dolphins. Their slightly surrealistic music and their weird music vidéos have made them quite an internet sensation. Elisapie mixes her Inuit heritage with contemporary folk and a slightly electronic vibe, traditional chants merging with uplight and dreamy beats, for what will probably be a beautiful and touching concert. Quebec has a very exciting hip-hop scene at the moment, and some of the artists who are shaking things up over there are also invited to the party. Both Dead Obies and Loud rap in their own brand of Frenglish, mixing American influences with trends coming from French-speaking Hip-hop. In tune with the trends Hip-hop and electronic music have become more and more present in each year's line-up, as Paléo tries to stay in tune with the global and local music trends.  Hip-hop has most certainly expanded at an incredible rate these last few years, with certain rappers rising to fame in a few months, going from playing small clubs to filling stadiums with tens of thousands of fans. Moreover, the genre has diversified and blended with other styles, cosying up to French variety and pop, like Lomepal, Damso or Dadju. Another sign of the importance of the French-speaking scene today, all of the hip-hop artists coming to Paléo are French, like Soprano or Jazzy Bazz, Belgian like second-degree duo Jean-Jass and Caballero, or even Swiss, with local star Makala and prolific producer Muddy Monk. For fans of slightly calmer or more old-school music, the festival will have its traditional classical concert on the Saturday with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne for the very first time, who will present a selection of pieces from Mozart to Mendelssohn. Jane Birkin will revisit Gainsbourg's legacy alongside a symphonic orchestra, and she shouldn't feel too lonely as both her daughters, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon will also play during the week. Young British singer-songwriter Charlie Cunnigham will bring his delicate texts and intricate folk, and Australian band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever will make their public jump around with their energetic rock. The tradition of ending the night with a DJ set continues, and godfather of French Touch Etienne de Crecy will be ready to turn the grounds into a huge open-air dance-floor. Another project to look out for will be Kompromat, a celebration of the early Berlin roots of techno lead by Vitalic and Rebekka Warrior, who have both come to Paléo separately in the past. You can discover the whole line-up here on the Paléo website , and also download the official Paléo app that offers alot of helpful information. Tickets go online next Wednesday 3rd April at midday, and usually sell out really quickly!