The 19th Zurich Film Festival promises to be a star-studded affair with plenty of Hollywood A-list talent attending.
Todd Haynes will be honored with the festival’s A Tribute to… Award and will present his film “May December.”Previous recipients include Paolo Sorrentino, Wim Wenders, Olivier Assayas, Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, Oliver Stone, Maïwenn and Luca Guadagnino.
“It’s a real honor to celebrate this master of American cinema. Todd Haynes is renowned for his elegant mise-en-scène and his ability to get the best from his actors and actresses,” said festival director Christian Jungen.
Ethan Hawke will be present with his film “Wildcat.” As previously announced, Jessica Chastain will receive the festival’s Golden Icon Award. Diane Kruger will receive the Golden Eye prize.
The festival’s feature film competition for first, second and third works will see “Ama Gloria,” “Enea,” “Fair Play,” “Femme,” “Hesitation Wound,” “How To Have Sex,” “The Rapture,” “Mandoob,” “Melk,” “Slow,” “Stolen,” “The Hypnosis,” “The Red Suitcase” and “Varvara” competing for a CHF25,000 ($28,000) cash prize.
The Focus competition showcases feature films and documentaries from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with this year’s lineup including six world premieres. “The competition is becoming increasingly popular with our public and is also attracting ever more media attention. This year we are able to show four Swiss films as world premieres, including ‘The Driven One’ by Piet Baumgartner, a long-term study of students at the elite university HSG St. Gallen, and the quite literally fantastic road movie ‘Retour en Alexandrie’ by Zurich-based Tamer Ruggli, which stars Nadine Labaki and Fanny Ardant and takes us to the director’s second home, Egypt,” Jungen said.
In all, the festival will feature 148 films, 52 world and European premieres, 52 first works and 18 Swiss films.
“We’re delighted to be able to offer our audience a record number of world and European premieres. This high number reflects the ZFF’s growing reputation in the global film industry. The Zurich Film Festival is the perfect festival to boost the prestige of films for the upcoming award season,” Jungen said. “We’re particularly looking forward to welcoming three huge names in American cinema, Jessica Chastain, Ethan Hawke and Todd Haynes, who are set to attend the festival in person to present their works to the public.”
