Zurich Film Fest will honor Milos Forman

Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) will present multiple Oscar® winner Milos Forman (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,” “Amadeus”) with the Festival’s prestigious Golden Eye Award for his life work as a director. The announcement was made today by ZFF Directors Karl Spoerri and Nadja Schildknecht.

Milos Forman is regarded as one of the most boundary pushing filmmakers of our time and will receive the “Golden Eye” for his life’s work as a director on Saturday, October 2nd within the framework of the “A Tribute to...” series at the 6th Zurich Film Festival.

The works of the 78-year-old filmmaker, celebrated for his experimentation with the widest variety of film genres and his distinctive works, have highly influenced and inspired emerging directors around the world. The Czech-American film director, screenwriter, actor and professor will be in Zurich to accept the “A Tribute to...” award personally.

The Zurich Film Festival will also present a Milos Forman retrospective to mark the presentation of the award on October 2nd and will screen numerous films from his illustrious career, including such classics as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,” “Amadeus,” and “The People vs. Larry Flynt.” The films will be shown in the Corso Cinema.

Before the “A Tribute to...” awarding ceremony, Forman will discuss his work as a director at a workshop presented within ZFF’s signature Master Class series, now in its 5th instalment. This exclusive talent workshop will give 25 selected participants the opportunity to exchange ideas with the iconic director.

The Zurich Film Festival’s previous “A Tribute to...” guests of honour have been: Oscar® winner Roman Polanski in 2009, Oscar®-winner Constantin Costa-Gavras (Z, Missing, Betrayed) in 2008, the three-times Oscar®-winner Oliver Stone (Midnight Express, Platoon, Born on the 4th of July) in 2007 and the multi-Oscar® nominated director Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette, The Grifters, The Queen) in 2006.

About Milos Forman:

Jan Tomáš Forman, better known as Miloš Forman, is a Czech American film director, screenwriter, actor and professor. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both garnering him the Academy Award® as a director. He was also nominated for The People vs. Larry Flynt.

Forman was born in Čáslav, Czechoslovakia (present-day Czech Republic). He directed several Czech comedies in Czechoslovakia. However, in 1968, when the USSR and its allies invaded the country in what became known as the Prague Spring, he was in Paris negotiating for the production of his first American film. He soon moved to New York, where he later became a professor of film at Columbia University and co-chair (with his former teacher František Daniel) of Columbia's film division. One of his protégées was future director James Mangold, whom Forman had advised about scriptwriting.

In spite of initial difficulties, he started directing in his new home country, and achieved success in 1975 with the adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which won five Academy Awards® including one for direction. In 1977, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Other notable successes have been Amadeus, which won eight Academy Awards®, and The People vs. Larry Flynt, for which he received a Best Director Academy Award® Nomination and a Golden Globe® win.

Forman's early movies are still very popular among Czechs. Many situations and phrases from his movies passed into common use. For example, the Czech term zhasnout (to switch lights off) from The Firemen's Ball, associated with petty theft in the movie, has been used to describe the large-scale asset stripping that occurred in the country during the 1990s.

Forman co-starred alongside Edward Norton in the actor's directorial debut, Keeping the Faith (2000), as the wise friend to Norton's young, conflicted priest. In 2009 he received an honorary degree from Emerson College in Boston.

Filmography

Year Film

1963 Audition
1964 Black Peter (Czech)
1965 Loves of a Blonde (Czech)
1967 The Firemen's Ball (Czech)
1971 Taking Off
1973 Visions of Eight
1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1979 Hair
1981 Ragtime
1984 Amadeus
1989 Valmont
1996 The People vs. Larry Flynt
1999 Man on the Moon
2006 Goya's Ghosts
2009 A Walk Worthwhile

Further information about the “A Tribute to” series and about the 6th Zurich Film Festival can be found under: www.zurichfilmfestival.org. Further information about application for the Zurich Master Class can be found under www.zurichmasterclass.org.