* Zurich Film Festival 2020 *

gimme a beat with babymonster

First held in 2005, Zurich Film Festival established itself very quickly on national and international film festival scene. The formula for it success it's probably mix of an attractive location: international but small city of Zurich; great selection of movies and different programs/events like ZFF Masters, ZFF Talks, Zurich Summit, ZFF for Pupils, ZFF 72 and few others. Few years ago I read the sentence in an industry booklet I received with my accreditation and this stayed with me as a logical reason behind Zurich Film Festival's success. Basically, the organizers agree on few basics for a successful film festival: "content is a king, collaboration is key and encounters among creative folks are essential". It is obvious that they are taking "these basics" seriously every year while they are developing festival further and most importantly, in the right direction. This year, due to Covid19, everything was different. Until the last moment I wasn't sure that the festival will really happen. But brilliant Team behind Zurich Film Festival made it happen. And even with all the security measures, spaces between seats, mandatory masks, etc., this brought a bit of normality to the city vibe and anyone attending the festival. As a result, the 16th edition of Zurich Film Festival attracted 68'000 visitors and managed to screen 165 films, including the record number of 23 world premiers (11 in 2019). The amount of visitors was 50% of the amount from last year, but if we consider that due to security measures movie theaters had limited capacity this is in pair with previous year and even much more than expected. Fortunately for me, with great movie selection like in previous years I had to heavily prioritize and choose wisely which movies I will see. Zurich is a small town so it was not a big deal to run from one location to other, but not all the cinemas were included and some were further out, so I had to be very well coordinated to get to see everything i want. As usual I haven't attended many events because for me it's all about watching the movies; my most enjoyable moment is when I am sitting in the dark room of the cinema doing only that. And as Gimme A Beat is focused on female related subjects, through my review of the Zurich Film Festival I explored *female factor* of the festival and therefore focused on two type of movies: movies made by female filmmakers and movies showcasing female life. As in all previous years the organizers used hashtags to mark the movies so finding the movies that I potentially liked and that fit my exploration was easy, I just followed #FemaleFilmmakers and #FemaleLife hashtags. I also used them in my reviews. And even though I saw tiny piece of the whole festival I was truly impressed with movie selection, great balance of different genres, aspiring filmmakers and (potential) blockbusters as well as strong women presence. In addition and as in all previous years, the organization was impeccable, especially media center that was always available and ready to take care of press needs. All of this while keeping it safe. Movies selection wise I've seen many movies and posted reviews of most of them on Gimme A Beat page. Just follow the search with hashtags #zff #zff2020 #gimmeabeat. In tonight's Gimme A Beat I will try to cover most of those movies again and in more details, or at least my favorite ones. You can also find them here or if searching with #zff #zff2020 #highlight #gimmeabeat. You can also find all the highlights in my last post. And I even managed to interview two female directors and one leading actress: Frederike Migom, director and writer of movie Binti, Jeanette Nordahl, director and Sandra Guldberg Kampp, leading role of the movie Wildland - Kød & blod. In tonight's show I will be focusing on these two movies. You can find the review for Binti here, and review of Wildland - Kød & blod here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------