Zurich Film Festival

The American director, actor and writer Rob Reiner will receive the 13th Zurich Film Festival’s A Tribute to...Award at this year’s ZFF, which takes place from September 28 to October 8, 2017.

Reiner will be in Zurich to receive the prestigious award in person on Saturday September 30.   ZFF will host the World Premiere of his latest film SHOCK AND AWE, which screens on the same evening with cast member James Marsden also in attendance. As well as directing, Reiner co-stars in the film, alongside Marsden, Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Biel and Milla Jovovich. Credit Suisse is the official partner of the A Tribute To... Award. 

Reiner will take part in a special ZFF Masters session on the same day, and as part of the A Tribute to... award, ZFF will present a retrospective featuring several of Reiner’s most iconic films including THIS IS SPINAL TAP, STAND BY ME, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, MISERY, A FEW GOOD MEN and THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (the latter two both written by fellow ZFF honoree Aaron Sorkin). Credit Suisse is the A Tribute to...partner.

Rob Reiner

Two-time Emmy Award winner Rob Reiner first came to fame as an actor on the landmark TV series ALL IN THE FAMILY. He went on to become an acclaimed director of some of the most popular and influential films of the last 35 years. From THIS IS SPINAL TAP, STAND BY ME, THE PRINCESS BRIDE and WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, to MISERY, A FEW GOOD MEN, THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, GHOSTS OF THE MISSISSIPPI and THE BUCKET LIST, Reiner has shown great versatility in tackling different genres. His most recent film LBJ screened at ZFF 2016 with Woody Harrelson in attendance.

Alongside his work as a director and actor, Reiner is also known for his political activism. In California he led the passage of Proposition 10, a tax on cigarettes that generates more the $500 million a year for early childhood development. In addition, Reiner and his wife Michele were founding members of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which filed the first lawsuit against California’s discriminatory Proposition 8. AFER’s victory in the US Supreme Court paved the way for marriage equality nationwide.

SHOCK AND AWE

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the government of the United States, led by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, began manoeuvring and mobilizing for an invasion of Iraq. In the absence of concrete evidence, the White House and its allies concocted a platform for invasion justified almost entirely on questionable intelligence and misleading information. The media bought their tale. Every media organ in America became a megaphone for the hawks in Washington, amplifying the Administration’s hysteria and pushing its propaganda; every major news organization became complicit in the path to war - except one.

Knight Ridder was a consortium of 31 newspapers across the country. Based in Washington, D.C., its newsroom counted among its millions of readers a sizable number of soldiers and their families at dozens of military bases nationwide. This is the untold true story of an intrepid team of four reporters who dared to ask the questions their colleagues did not. They tapped sources which others ignored. They remained sceptical when others were easily convinced. They wrote stories disputing the Administration’s claims that Iraq was complicit in the attacks of 9/11 and that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. They were called anti-American. They were labelled traitors. They were told time and again that they were wrong – by the government, by pundits, and by colleagues.

Reporters Jonathan Landay (Woody Harrelson) and Warren Strobel (James Marsden), working with the support of their editor John Walcott (Rob Reiner) and famous war correspondent Joe Galloway (Tommy Lee Jones), set forth to sift through the chaos and official lies, uncover the truth, and report it to the public. In the face of intense scrutiny and pressure, during a time of pro-invasion cheerleading by the majority of their media colleagues, they dared to uphold the best tenets of their profession. Theirs is a story of speaking truth to power – and the public - in a time when America needed it the most. The government got its war, but these reporters got it right.