Swiss drama unmasks the country’s invisible working poor

In A Happy Family, a single mother who loses her children to the state puts a rare spotlight on poverty in Switzerland. The film left the recent Karlovy Vary film festival with the Best Actress award for its lead actress and co-writer, Anna Schinz. Switzerland often sparks images of wealth, pristine landscapes and a well-ordered social life, and its cinema has usually managed to keep up appearances. But in A Happy Family, director Jan-Eric Mack turns that picture upside down. “We wanted to show…