Capital of Switzerland, Zurich is located at the tip of the northwest corner of Lake Zurich and it is the largest city in the country. It was settled by the Romans more than 2000 years ago and is now one of the largest financial centres in the world. Famous for its chocolates and watches, it is also the home of Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) which occurs every year sometime toward the last week of September.
From a Small Event to an International Affair
Zurich Film Festival first began in 2005, and it was founded by Nadja Schildknecht, Karl Spoerri and Antoine Monot, Jr. The festival started off with a few film award categories and around 8,000 people in the audience. After receiving positive responses, the festival slowly began to grow and eventually extended its duration to 11 days in 2007. By 2013, ZFF had become a huge success and attracted over 71,000 visitors from all around the world. ‘Kino Corsco’, ‘Kino Arthouse Le Paris’ and ‘Arena Filmcity’ are the main venues for this film festival.
A Worldwide Event
Zurich Film Festival premieres selected content produced by filmmakers who are both new and renowned. The content comes from all over the world. All these diverse movies are showcased differently in different categories. The main award of this festival is the “Golden Eye” award, which is given to the most promising new filmmaker. A few notable films that have won awards in this event are “Broken” (2012, United Kingdom, International Feature Film), “The Italian” (2005, Russia, Debut) and “Happy, Happy” (2011, Norway, Critics’ Choice Award). Aside from that, the festival also presents awards in other categories, as such as:
- International Feature Film
- International Documentary Film
- Focus: Switzerland, Germany, Austria
- Children’s Film Audience Award
- Critics’ Choice Awards
- Treatment Competition Award
These films are screened for the entire German-speaking population to watch and critique. It brings together industry players as such as media professionals and industry leaders along with filmmakers, distributors, buyers, sellers and the audience. This is a nourishing environment for uprising filmmakers to be exposed to, as they can use this opportunity to network. Mingling with experienced filmmakers and people of the industry would also enable them to learn and to grow.
Zurich Film Festival still continues to grow and develop, and it adds new features and sections to it every few years. A lot of new and exciting things can be anticipated for this film festival in the years to come.
Website :zff.com
Facebook :www.facebook.com/zurichfilmfestival
Twitter :twitter.com/zurichfilmfest
YouTube :www.youtube.com/user/ZFFchannel