Record numbers of visitors flocked to Zurich Film Festival
The Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) this week attracted more than 100,000 visitors for the first time in its 14-year history, the organisers announced on Sunday.
Some 104,000 people flocked to the festival, which ran from September 28 to October 7 this year, to watch the 162 films from 48 countries being screened at the event. Many of the screenings were sold out, said ZFFExternal link. The attendance broke last year’s record of 98,300 visitors.
In addition, attendees took part in public discussions with international stars such as Donald Sutherland, Wim Wenders and Johnny Depp. The showcase prize ceremony took place at Zurich’s opera house on Saturday night.
The prizes were awarded to the Belgian film ‘Girl’ by Lukas Dhont in the international feature film category. The critics’ prize went to the Danish film ‘The Guilty’ by Gustav Möller while Daniel Zimmermann’s first film ‘Walden’ was honored with the best Emerging Swiss Talent award.
The award for Best International Documentary Film went to Heartbound by Janus Metz and Sine Plambech from Denmark. German film director Wim Wenders was given the “A Tribute to… Award”.
“2018 is a strong year for cinema. The films in the three competition sections, the Gala screenings and the sidebar sections were of outstanding quality,” read a joint statement from ZFF co-directors Nadja Schildknecht and Karl Spoerri.
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