Zurich Film Festival to close with The Help

The 7th edition of the Zurich Film Festival will close with US box office hit The Help, directed by Tate Taylor from the best selling book by Kathryn Stockett.

Amongst the European premieres at the festival will be Bennett Miller’s Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. Oren Moverman’s Rampart starring Woody Harrelson will also screen at the Festival.

The line-up, which is considerably higher profile than in previous years, includes Gus Van Sant’s Restless, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, George Clooney’s Ides Of March, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, Steve McQueen’s Shame, Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights and Werner Herzog’s Cave Of Forgotten Dreams.

World premieres include Anita Blumer’s Alles Eis Ding, Samuel Schwarz and Julian Grunthal’s Mary & Johnny, both of which are Swiss films.

The ZFF has increased the number of screening venues from 7 to 10 this year as part of the festival’s steady growth since it launched in 2005.

The Festival Centre has been moved to the more traffic friendly Sechseläutenplatz, while the city’s Opera House will be used for the first time to host the ZFF’s awards ceremony.

New to this year’s festival will be a Border Line sidebar focusing on humanitarian issues and feature panel discussions, as a result of a partnership with the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) organsiation. The sidebar will feature two docs and six short films.

The ZFF has also added a new German language documentary film competition category, taking the number of competition categories to four. The festival will also continue its focus on local films, with seven Swiss films screening. This year’s New World View section will focus on Turkish Films.

Sean Penn, Lawrence Fishburn, Paul Haggis and Alejandro González Iñárritu are all expected to attend the festival which runs September 22 –October 2.