"Zurich Film Prize" to be chosen without audience jury in future

Two reasons prompted the foundation to make this change. There is the problem that films must be screened publicly for audience juries; however, these can clash with festival premieres in terms of scheduling, as Julia Krättli, managing director of the Zurich Film Foundation, explained to the Keystone-SDA news agency. By doing away with the audience jury, producers and distributors are now left to decide when they want to show a film publicly for the first time.

In addition, an audience jury requires a certain number of viewers to ensure that the selection is well supported. At the first award ceremony last year, the number of viewers who judged the prize was too small.

Award ceremony after ZFF

The second change communicated by the Zurich Film Foundation concerns the timing and form of the award ceremony. If the prize was awarded in 2019 as part of the ZFF, the award in 2020 will be presented after the festival, in early November. "Last year, we used the synergy with ZFF for the audience jury. Because we now do without jurors from the audience, we are free in terms of time," explains Krättli.

The foundation is now aligning itself with the film awards ceremonies of other cantons such as Bern and Basel. In addition, this date offers the possibility of the Zurich Film Prize becoming a yardstick for the Swiss Film Prize, as the films submitted are largely congruent, according to the statement. Exactly how the event will be organized will be decided in the course of the year.

With the innovations to the awards ceremony, the Film Foundation is responding to criticism of the first awards ceremony. According to the foundation, the procedure in the first year did not pass the stress test.

Furthermore, a jury of three experts will decide on the short film, the long documentary and the long feature film. In each of the three categories there will be an award for the best film.

Prize money remains unchanged

A new feature will be that each jury will also award two special achievements, for example for camera, music, editing, screenplay, acting and other people involved in the film. "The Zurich Film Prize thus takes into account the fact that every film work is only created through the collaboration of many people involved," writes the Film Foundation.

A total of 100,000 Swiss francs in prize money will continue to be awarded. The best film in the documentary and feature film categories will each receive 20,000 Swiss francs, and the special achievement awards 10,000 Swiss francs. In the short film category, the best film receives 10,000 Swiss francs, the honorees 5,000 Swiss francs.

Which experts will sit on the juries in 2020 is to be announced at the beginning of summer, at the same time as the call for entries for the "Zurich Film Awards". (SDA)