Zurich unveils 2014 line-up

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International and documentary competitions include The Skeleton Twins, ‘71 and The Look of Silence. A total of 17 world premieres secured for the festival, which has received a budget boost.

The 10^th Zurich Film Festival (Sept 25 – Oct 5) has revealed its full line-up, which comprises 145 features – up from 122 last year – from 29 countries.

Co-director Nadja Schildknecht revealed a rise in budget for the festival as well as growth in anticipated guest numbers.

“This year, we expect some 500 guests (previous year 450) from around the world to accompany their films,” she said.

“And the budget has increased accordingly to CHF6.9m ($7.4m) (previous year CHF6.1m/$6.5m).”

As previously announced, Tate Taylor’s James Brown biopic Get On Up will open the festival on Sept 25. The closing film has yet to be revealed.

International competition

The International Feature Film Competition includes 14 titles, some of which have received critical acclaim at previous festivals such as Yann Demange’s action thriller ‘71, which debuted at the Berlinale; Craig Johnson drama The Skeleton Twins, starring Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, which won a screenwriting award at Sundance; and Nima Javidi drama Melbourne, which played at Venice.

Titles in competition that are currently showing at Toronto include Michael R Roskam’s The Drop, starring Tom Hardy and the late James Gandolfini, and Baldvin Zophoníasson’s Icelandic drama Life in a Fishbowl.

Bouboule, Bruno Deville (Swi)
Chrieg, Simon Jaquemet (Swi)
Insecure (Qui Vive), Marianne Tardieu (Fr)
Loreak, Jon Garaño, José Mari Goenaga (Sp)
Underdog (Svenskjävel), Ronnie Sandahl (Swi)
Life In A Fishbowl, Baldvin Zophoniasson, (Ice)
’71, Yann Demange (UK)
Melbourne, Nima Javidi, (Iran)
Self Made (Boreg), Shira Geffen, (Isr)
Manos Sucias, Josef Wladyka (US-Col)
The Drop, Michael R. Roskam (US)
The Skeleton Twins, Craig Johnson (US)
The Midfielder (El 5 Talleres), Adrian Biniez (Arg-Uru-Ger-Fr-Neth)
A Moonless Night (Una Noche Sin Luna), Germán Tejeira (Uru-Arg)

The jury will be presided over by director Susanne Bier and includes US actor Val Kilmer, US producer Donald De Line, Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić and French producer Marie Masmonteil.

The winner will receive a cash prize of CHF25,000 ($27,000) as well as an additional CHF 100’000 ($107,000) worth of distribution support.

Documentary competition

The Documentary Feature Film Competition comprises 13 titles and includes Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, the follow-up to the Danish director’s critically acclaimed The Act of Killing, which has scored strong reviews out of Venice, Telluride and Toronto.

Other titles include Gabe Polsky’s Cold War hockey doc Red Army, which debuted in Cannes; Margaret Brown’s Deepwater Horizon disaster film The Great Invisible, which won the Grand Jury Award at SXSW; Orlando von Einsiedel’s endangered gorilla feature Virunga, which bowed at Tribeca; and Nadav Schirman’s Israeli spy doc The Green Prince, which won the Audience Award when it debuted at Sundance.

Iraqi Odyssey (3D), Samir (Swi-Ger-Iraq-UAE)
Song From The Forest, Michael Obert (Ger)
The Green Prince, Nadav Schirman (Ger)
Virunga, Orlando Von Einsiedel (UK)
The Look Of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer (Den-Fin-UK-Nor-Indo)
Cain’s Children, Marcell Gerö Ungarn (Hun-Fr)
Toto And His Sisters, Alexander Nanau (Rom)
Walking Under Water, Eliza Kubarska (Pol)
Ballet 422, Jody Lee Lipes (US)
Red Army, Gabe Polsky (US)
Stray Dog, Debra Granik (US)
The Great Invisible, Margaret Brown (US)
The Rise And Rise Of Bitcoin, Nicholas Mross (US)

The jury will be presided over by Hoop Dreams director Steve James and includes UK doc maker Nick Broomfield, US photographer Greg Gorman and Indian director Nishtha Jain.

The winner will receive a cash prize of CHF25,000 ($27,000) as well as an additional CHF 100’000 ($107,000) worth of distribution support.

Focus competition

As previously announced, the line-up for ZFF’s new Focus: Switzerland, Germany, Austria competition section will include 12 films including Toronto titles Labyrinth of Lies, a post-war German drama from Giulio Ricciarelli; and Baran bo Odar’s computer hacker thriller Who Am I - No System is Safe.

The Focus strand includes first, second or third feature and documentary films from German-speaking countries and replaces the previous German-langauge feature and German-language documentary competitions.

Capital C, Jørg M. Kundinger, Timon Birkhofer
Children of the Arctic, Nick Brandestini
Dark Star - HR Giger’s World, Belinda Sallin
The Chambermaid Lynn, Ingo Haeb
The Cuckoo and the Donkey, Andreas Arnstedt
Die Demokratie ist los, Thomas Isler
Labyrinth of Lies, Giulio Ricciarelli
Macondo, Sudabeh Mortezai
Ohne Dich, Alexandre Powelz
Parcours D’Amour, Bettina Blümner
Who Am I - No System is Safe, Baran bo Odar
Zu Ende Leben, Rebecca Panian

The jury will be presided over by prolific German producer Stefan Arndt, co-founder of X Filme Creative Pool, who has produced Cloud Atlas, Run Lola Run, Good Bye Lenin! and Amour among others.

Endowed with a CHF20,000 ($21,000) cash prize, the winning film will also receive an additional CHF100’000 ($107,000) worth of promotional support.

Gala Premieres

Most of the gala titles have been teased out by Zurich over the past few weeks but new titles include Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man, featuing Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last leading performance; Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight; and Gabe Ibanez’s Automata, which will see star Antonio Banderas in attendance at the festival.

Northmen: A Viking Saga, Claudio Fäh
A Most Wanted Man, Anton Corbijn
A Walk Among The Tombstones, Scott Frank
And So It Goes, Rob Reiner
Automata, Gabe Ibanez
Birdman, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu
Chef, Jon Favreau
The Cut, Fatih Akin
Eden, Mia Hansen-Løve
The Equalizer, Antoine Fuqua
Escobar: Paradise Lost, Andrea Di Stefano
Get On Up, Tate Taylor [opening film]
Gone Girl, David Fincher
Good Kill, Andrew Niccol
In the Basement (Im Keller), Ulrich Seidl
To The Wonders (Le Meraviglie), Alice Rohrwacher
Life Itself, Steve James
Magic In The Moonlight, Woody Allen
Manglehorn, David Gordon Green
Männerhort, Franziska Meyer Price
My Old Lady, Israel Horovitz
National Gallery, Frederick Wiseman
The New Girlfriend, Francois Ozon
Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy
The Rover, David Michôd
St. Vincent, Theodore Melfi
The Salt Of The Earth, Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
The Search, Michel Hazanavicius
Whiplash, Damien Chazelle
Wish I Was Here, Zach Braff

New World View: India

As previously announced, ZFF will focus on India in this year’s New World View section and has unveiled the line-up.

But rather than focus on Bollywood, ZFF will spotlight the latest developments in the type of auteur film that first came to the world’s attention in the mid-50s thanks to such luminaries of the so-called Indian New Wave as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen.

Titles include Kanu Behl’s Titli, which debuted at Cannes; Anand Gandhi’s Ship Of Theseus, which has won numerous festival awards since it bowed at Toronto 2012; Amit Kumar’s Moonsoon Shootout, nominated for the Golden Camera at Cannes 2013; and Nishtha Jain’s award-winning documentary Gulabi Gang.

Court, Chaitanya Tamhane
Fandry, Negraj Manjule
Gulabi Gang, Nishta Jain
I.D., Kamal Km
Kurzfilme Aus Indien, Various
Liar’s Dice, Geethu Mohandas
Lucia, Pawan Kumar
Monsoon Shootout, Amit Kumar
Powerless, Fahad Msutafa, Deepti Kakkar
Micmac Masters, Nalan Kumarasamy
Writers, Amit Masurkar
Ship Of Theseus, Anand Gandhi
Titli, Kanu Behl

Border Lines

ZFF’s Border Lines strand, including films dealing with conflict situations and people in need, includes:

Carl Lutz - Der Schweizer Schindler, Daniel von Aarburg
Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case, Andreas Johnsen
Hope, Boris Lojkine
Maidan, Sergei Loznitsa
Return To Homs, Talal Derki
We Come As Friends, Hubert Sauper

Special Screenings

Highlights of the Special Screening strand includes Dietrich Brüggemann’s religious drama Stations of the Cross; the latest documentary from ZFF jury member Nick Broomfield, Tales of the Grim Sleeper; vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows; and the new film from Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, Tigers.