Quickly gaining stature as one of the best of Europe’s newer players on the fall festival scene, the Zurich Film Festival wrapped its ninth edition last weekend after it’s longest and most wide ranging event yet. One hundred and twenty-two films screened over the course of 11 days in Switzerland’s largest city, one which besides being a capital of world banking is among of the oldest continuous settlements in Europe, dating back over 6,400 years. The festival, run by Karl Spoerri and Nadja Schildknecht, featured its most star-studded group of guests yet, with the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Harrison Ford, Michael Haneke and Hugh Jackman being feted on the festival’s oddly green carpet with various honors, while a group of directors that would be right at home in a Cannes competition lineup, among them James Gray, Atom Egoyan, David Gordon Green, Andrew Dominik and Marc Forster, were either in town to exhibit new work or sit on one of the festival’s several juries. The four main competitions, delineated between international and German language films as well as narratives and docs, focus on first-, second- or third-time filmmakers making international, European or within the “German-speaking realm” premieres; the galas and special screenings tend to dominated by established international auteurs or films making their world premiere in Zurich. Sidebars focused on new Brazilian cinema, cinema within conflict zones and children’s films rounded out lead programmer Viviana Vezzani’s impressive selection.
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