Russian success at Zurich film festival
The Zurich film festival, overshadowed by the arrest of one of its star guests, Roman Polanski, presented its awards on Saturday evening.
The Russian film Wolfy, directed by Vassily Sigarev, won the Golden Eye in the international feature film section.
The German-Swiss co-production “The Sound After The Storm” by Patrik Soergel, Ryan Fenson-Hood and Sven Hill, won the same award in the international documentary film section, while the German film 66/67 – Fairplay is Over, by Carsten Ludwig and Jan-Christoph Glaser, won in the German language film category.
The audience award went to another German-Swiss co-production, Ceasefire, by Lancelot von Naso.
The Critic’s Choice Award, made for the first time, was given to a Danish film, Martin Pieter Zandvliet’s Applause, while the Variety New Talent Award was won by Amreeka, a US-Kuwaiti-Canadian co-production directed by Cherien Dabis.
The festival also honoured the American actors Morgan Freeman and Michael Keaton for their lifetime achievements.
Festival co-director Nadja Schildknecht spoke of the “unexpected turn” that the festival had taken after the arrest of Polanski on his arrival at Zurich airport.
“We had no idea that that was going to happen to Roman Polanski,” she said at the award ceremony. “We still believe in his remarkable body of work.”
The Zurich film festival, being held for the fifth time, prides itself on “discovering and promoting independent voices and talent from around the world”, and on presenting a number of world and European premieres. This year it screened more than 60 films.
swissinfo.ch and agencies
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.