In September 1929, Soviet filmmaker Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898-1948) travelled to Switzerland, accompanied by his assistant director Grigori Aleksandrov (1897-1983) and chief cameraman Eduard Tisse (1897-1961). They took part in the 1st International Congress of Independent Cinema (CICI), held in La Sarraz. Launched upon the initiative of artist and philanthropist Hélène de Mandrot (1867-1948), this congress, henceforth legendary, reunited some thirty participants, among whom Eisenstein, Béla Balázs, Alberto Cavalcanti, Léon Moussinac, Hans Richter, Walther Ruttmann and Georg Schmidt.

Eisenstein next went to Zurich with his companions to shoot a film about abortion, commissioned by producer Lazar Wechsler (1896-1981), founder of Praesens Film. This film entitled Frauennot Frauenglück (Misery and Fortune of Women), presents several tableaux, mixing documentary with fiction. On 19 September 1929, S.M. Eisenstein took off from Zurich for Berlin, leaving Aleksandrov and Tisse to complete the film. The première took place on 21 March 1930 in Zurich, at the Apollo Cinerama.

These thirty metres of film shot in Zurich on the sidelines of the shoot of Frauennot Frauenglück resurfaced in 1999, during the examination of a 35mm nitrate positive catalogued under the attributed title [Lazar Wechsler Privatfilm]. The two first shots are a prank filmed on the site of the shoot in a Zurich clinic. In it we see Lazar Wechsler preparing to undergo an operation carried out by Eisenstein disguised as doctor. These shots were probably filmed by Emil Berna (1907-2000), Praesens Film's official cameraman, who had already begun to shoot before Eisenstein's arrival. In the following shots S.M. Eisenstein is bid farewell at the time of his departure for Berlin. We recognise in them Mrs Wechsler as well as aviator Walter Mittelholzer (1894-1937), whose renowned aeronautical expedition films were edited by Praesens, the company which he had supported by contributing to its increase in capital.