Zurich Film Festival
| Zurich Film Festival | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Location | Zurich, Switzerland |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Awards | Golden Eye |
| Language | International |
| http://www.zurichfilmfestival.org | |
The Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) is an important international film festival, held annually in Zurich, Switzerland. A stated objective of the festival is to discover and support young, aspiring filmmakers and to offer the industry, audiences, the press and a broader public an exciting cinema experience in Zurich.
The Zurich Film Festival is organised by Spoundation Motion Picture GmbH, based in Zurich, in cooperation with local institutions and sponsors. The Zurich Film Festival cooperates with numerous distributors and producers from Switzerland and abroad. Today, the festival directors are Karl Spoerri (creative director) and Nadja Schildknecht (public relations, marketing and sponsoring).
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[edit] History
In 2004, Karl Spoerri decided to launch the renowned British digital festival „onedotzero_adventures in moving images“ in Zurich. Karl Spoerri engaged Nadja Schildknecht as the responsible person for public relations and Antoine Monot as web designer. From October 29 to 31, 2004, the festival was hosted at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst in Zurich. Out of this small but successful event, Karl Spoerri, Nadja Schildknecht and Antoine Monot Jr. developed the Zurich Film Festival.
In October 2005, the 1st Zurich Film Festival was launched, and it attracted around 8000 visitors. In 2006, the competition was supplemented with two new awards and a total of three “Golden Eye” awards were granted for “Best Feature Film”, “Best Documentary Film” and “Best Debut Feature”. The 2nd Zurich Film Festival denoted more than 18’000 visitors. In 2007, the “Zurich Coproduction Forum” was added to the festival programme. The festival continued to grow and became firmly established upon the national and international festival landscape within a very short period of time.
Since 2008, the Zurich Film Festival takes place in the heart of Zurich at the cinemas Corso and Le Paris. The festival focuses on promoting the exchange of ideas between established film workers, young talent and the public. While young and upcoming filmmakers showcase their films in the International Competition, the festival also screens the most anticipated films of the year in the Gala Premieres section.
The Festival also focuses on German-speaking countries and has presented works solely from Switzerland, Germany and Austria in its German-Language Feature Film Competition since 2008. This is how the Zurich Film Festival has become one of the most important festivals in the German-speaking area.
[edit] Sections
[edit] Competition
The International Competition constitutes the core of the Zurich Film Festival. Young filmmakers compete for the main award "Golden Eye" with their first, second or third directorial works. The competition is made up of the International Feature film Competition, the International Documentary Film Competition and the German-Language Feature Film Competition. The Golden Eyes are awarded in each of the categories by a separate international jury. All awards are endowed with CHF 20'000 prize money and CHF 50'000 for the promotion of the film in Switzerland. Films are admitted to the competition provided that they have neither been aired on any German-speaking TV channel nor been released in Swiss theatres before the festival.
[edit] Jury
The international jury usually has five members and a jury president. The jury assigns the three competition awards “Best Debut Film”, “Best Fiction Feature” and “Best Documentary Film”.
| Year | Category | President | Members |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | International Feature Film | Frank Langella | Carlos Cuaron, Barry Gifford, Julia Solomonoff, Sharon Swart, Anatole Taubmann |
| International Documentary Film | Jennifer Fox | Mark Lewis, Chris Paine, Nenad Puhovsky, Heidi Specogna | |
| 2009 | International Feature Film | Debra Winger | Randal Kleiser, Dale Launer, Pawel Pawlikovski, Anahi Berneri |
| International Documentary Film | Erwin Wagenhofer | Peter Liechti, Elizabeth Wood | |
| 2008 | Fiction | Peter Fonda | Stephen Nemeth, Michael Dougherty, Andrea Staka, Dror Shaul, Claudia Puig, Hervé Schneid |
| Documentary | Christian Frei | Walter Hügli, Lorna Tee | |
| 2007 | Albert S. Ruddy | Bettina Oberli, Moritz Bleibtreu, Dieter Meier, Justus von Dohnányi, Matthew Modine | |
| 2006 | Edward R. Pressman | Jessica Schwarz, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Michael Steiner, This Brunner, Ueli Steiger | |
| 2005 | Hellmuth Karasek | Sigrid Narjes, Robert Schwentke, Sabine Timoteo, Shane RJ Walter |
[edit] Awards
On the last Saturday of the festival, at the "Closing Night" gala, the “Golden Eye” award is handed over to the directors of the winning films.
[edit] New World View
With its progressive and innovative programme, the series “New World View” brings in new aspects from around the globe. Only feature and documentary films produced no earlier than 24 months before the festival are shown in this series. The films must be the first, second or third work of a director.
The films in this section usually distinguish themselves by either their special cinematic narrative or their particular technical style. They break new ground and therefore offer a “new world view”. Since 2007, the series “New World View” each year focuses on one selected country.
| Year | Country |
|---|---|
| 2011 | Turkey |
| 2010 | Australia |
| 2009 | Argentina |
| 2008 | Israel |
| 2007 | Russia |
[edit] A Tribute To
“A Tribute To” honours an outstanding personality who has significantly influenced the history of film and who has repeatedly encouraged and supported young filmmaking.
| Year | Name | Award |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Paul Haggis | Golden Eye for lifework |
| 2010 | Milos Forman | Golden Eye for lifework |
| 2009 | Roman Polanski | Golden Eye for lifework |
| 2008 | Costa-Gavras | Golden Eye for lifework |
| 2007 | Oliver Stone | Golden Eye for lifework |
| 2006 | Stephen Frears | Golden Eye for lifework |
| 2005 | Rainer Werner Fassbinder | -- |
[edit] Golden Icon
The Golden Icon Award was inaugurated in 2008 and was designed to honour the lifework of an actress or an actor. The award is dedicated to a person who has become an icon for a whole generation and whose work and performance has become unforgettable. Sylvester Stallone was presented with the first Golden Icon Award on September 26, 2008.
| Year | Name | Award |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Sean Penn | Golden Icon for lifework |
| 2010 | Michael Douglas | Golden Icon for lifework |
| 2009 | Morgan Freeman | Golden Icon for lifework |
| 2008 | Sylvester Stallone | Golden Icon for lifework |
[edit] Out of Competition
In this series, visitors get to see star-studded premiers of international films.
[edit] Onedotzero and onedotzero_ch
The London-based onedotzero is the most important and innovative digital film festival to date. Already in its early stages the independent festival has shown works of at the time lesser known directors such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry or Chris Cunningham. With this series, the Zurich Film Festival brings the crème de la crème of digital film to Switzerland.
"Onedotzero_ch" offers a platform for young Swiss digital filmmakers and presents each year the latest ideas in the realm of creative video art.
[edit] Further events
[edit] Zurich Master Class
The Zurich Masterclass offers young directors and producers a one-off opportunity to exchange ideas with the masters of their field. The several-day series workshop talks imparts know-how and creates a framework for participants to establish new contacts. Former speakers include Costa-Gavras, Andreas Dresen, Stephen Frears, Morgan Freeman, Oliver Stone, Ken Loach, Milos Forman and Adrian Grenier.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zurich Film Festival |
- Zurich Film Festival
- www.onedotzero.ch
- 1st Zurich Film Festival: film reviews
- 2nd Zurich Film Festival: film reviews
- 3rd Zurich Film Festival: film reviews
