Zurich festival wrapped

The 18th Zurich Film Festival has truly been a special one. Enjoy a selection of our own festival highlights, while we begin preparing for next year...

Here's the rundown:
140 films
580 screenings
137'000 visitors
1006 industry delegates and guests

Zurich Summit

Game Changer Talk with Michael Barker and Tom Bernard during the Zurich Summit Conference © Tim Hughes for ZFF

The Zurich Summit Conference once again welcomed Hollywood's and Europe's greatest to address some of the industry's biggest questions and trends. In-between, Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, the recipients of the Game Changer Award, captivated the international audience with personal insights into their illustrious career and collaboration. The legendary Summit Tennis Tournament was won by non other than Oscar-winning producer Greg Shapiro, who euphorically stated that he was more proud to finally win this tournament than to have received the Oscar for THE HURT LOCKER.

For the first time the ZFF Summit Climber - the business counterpart to our ZFF Academy - were part of the Summit weekend. The eight up and coming sales and distribution executives became the opportunity to expand their transatlantic network in the framework of the Summit conference.

ZFF Academy

Masterclass with Christian Tafdrup © Agostina Schenone for ZFF

As talent programmes go, the ZFF Academy is up there with the best! This year, 20 filmmakers from around the world came together in Zurich for a packed and diverse 5-day programme - the heart of which again were the several intimate Masterclasses with esteemed filmmakers and producers (Christian Tafdrup, Christine Vachon, Roland Emmerich, Alexander Nanau, Lorenzo Mieli and Maryam Touzani). These sessions were supplemented by other activities such as receiving feedback by their peers in Bits & Pieces or a literal take on elevator pitching, where the participants had 34 seconds to ride up and down an elevator to pitch their projects to experts.

Sound of Zurich

Career Achievement Award for Rachel Portman © Thomas Niedermüller for ZFF

The International Film Music Competition was a spectacle again! While Robert IJserinkhuijsen received the Golden Eye for the Best International Film Score, Rachel Portman was honoured with the Career Achievement Award. Compleneting the film music programme, the collaboration with SoundTrack_Zurich brought three full days packed with events, panels, discussions, concerts and live commentaries by film composers.

Mixing the Industry

Opening Night After Party © Ricardo Souza

Purposeful and target-oriented networking is one of the biggest goals of our industry programme. Between our reception on Friday and the filmmaker's dinner a week later, industry peers had countless opportunities to connect and engage with each other during the festival. Of course, networking is not everything. With special workshops and sessions we also covered hot industry topics. This year's SRF Writer's Day focused on the intangibility of humor, while Leading FeMales again addressed gender equality and the role of women in the film industry. The Data-based Audience Workshop elaborated on modern marketing tools as did the initiative Auidence and Marketing Strategies with the AMS Focal Pitching.