Zurich Film Festival - Our last destination in Switzerland

Our last destination in Zurich was the Zurich Film Festival - the annual film festival is held at the end of September and spills over to October. It attracts thousands of tourists from around the world, specially those already visiting Zurich - and we were one of them in 2014.

Festival centre at Sechseläutenplatz, Zürich

Young tourists and up-and-coming heroes of tomorrow posing

The festival focuses on the work of young up-and-coming filmmakers from around the world to promote their work. However, particular emphasis is placed on the discovery of new talent from the German-speaking world as German is widely spoken in Switzerland.


The Zurich Film Festival is held under the auspices of Spoundation Motion Picture GmbH in cooperation with local sponsor and international distributors and producers. The idea to create an international film festival was the brainchild of Karl Spoerri, who founded the festival together with Nadja Schildknecht and Antoine Monot Jr.. Karl Spoerri (Artistic and Strategic Director) and Nadja Schildknecht (Managing Director) are the festival’s current Co-Directors.

Each evening, the ‘Gala Premier’ section celebrates highly anticipated film premieres by established filmmakers in the presence of cast and crew. Both feature films and large-scale documentaries are presented in this section. The films are screened as world, European, German-language or Swiss premieres.

Poster showing some of the films being shown in the festival

Golden Eye Award is the main attraction of the festival - an award that also comes with 25 000 CHF cash prize (International Feature / Documentary Film) resp. a 20'000 CHF cash prize (Focus). The public chooses its favourite film from all of the competition entries by giving votes to every film. The best voted film receives the festival's Audience Award.

 The state of parking lots being displayed for the ease of drivers finding a parking lot

Zurich Film Festival night at the Zurich Opera House

Each year the Zurich Opera House wars a cloak of brightly coloured lights, dominated by the purples, to host the film festival. When we reached the arena, the guests were arriving amid big applause by the crowd gathered around the welcome shelter.

 Guests being received by Nadja Schildknecht, managing director of ZFF

 Nadja Schildknecht, managing director of ZFF and Swiss entrepreneur 

 Actors posing in front of the ZFF welcome board

The Golden Eye Award for 2015 was presented to the following films in the categories as shown below (Source):

• International Feature Film Competition: UNA NOCHE SIN LUNA by Germán Tejeira (Uruguay)
• International Documentary Film Competition: TOTO AND HIS SISTERS by Alexander Nanau (Romania)
• Focus: Switzerland, Germany, Austria: CHILDREN OF THE ARCTIC by Nick Brandestini (Switzerland)
• Critic’s Choice Award: SVENSKJÄVEL by Ronnie Sandahl (Sweden)
• Audience Award: ZU ENDE LEBEN by Rebecca Panian (Switzerland)
• Audience Award for Children’s Film: QUATSCH UND DIE NASENBÄRBANDE by Veit Helmer (Germany)
• Newly introduced Emerging Swiss Talent Award: Bruno Deville’s BOUBOULE (Switzerland)

The day at Zurich was really lovable and enjoying as we roamed the main streets of the city centre, spent a beautiful evening by the Lake Zurich and the day culminating at the Zurich Film Festival - a hectic day if I may say so. And definitely it was and we were dead tired by the time we finally settled for a few scoops of Swiss novelty: The Movenpick ice cream:

Thus our Swiss tour finally ended with the delicious Swiss ice cream and memories that would always remind us of being there - though for one day but carrying a nostalgia that keeps reminding of Switzerland till date.

Tomorrow we would be leaving for Italy's Milan and Pisa. But there was much more enroute to write on. I will describe the following events in my subsequent posts.

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An evening by Lake Zürich

Continuing from my last post, it was around 5:21 PM, as can be seen from the big watch on the Zürich Bahnhofstrasse (below) that we realised that we have more places still to see. So we looked back at the Bahnhofstrasse for the last time and went to collect our car while the sunlight started to turn pale.

5:21 PM - time to say goodbye to c 

 The pale sunlight falling on buildings of Bahnhofstrasse 

We then drove through the streets of Zurich in fading sunlight watching people and buildings and sculptures by the roadsides, as can be seen in the following photos:

 Would you like to have this number for your car? - Well I would !!

And then it was the Lake Zürich - our second last place of interest. It was almost evening and the sun was gone already when we reached the lake.

There was nothing moving as all boats were already strapped and covered, except the many swans swimming and waiting for the tourists and visitors to feed them.

Lake Zürich, or Zürichsee as is it locally called, extends southeast of the city of Zürich. As per Wikipedia, Lake Zürich is formed by the Linth river, which rises in the glaciers of the Glarus Alps and was diverted by the Escher canal (completed in 1811) into Lake Walen from where its waters are carried to the east end of Lake Zürich by means of the Linth canal (completed in 1816). The waters of the Lake of Zürich flow out of the lake at its north-west end, passing through the city of Zürich; however, the outflow is then called the Limmat. The culminating point of the lake's drainage basin is the Tödi at 3,614 metres above sea level.

Perhaps we were on the wrong side as the massive fountain with more than half a dozen nozzles throwing away massive wall of Lake Zurich water in the air. We could see it from the 'wrong side' of the lake but it looked impressive even from our side.

The Lake Zurich has a coastal length of 87.60 km, with its deepest point 143.00 m (469 ft.) between Herrliberg and Oberrieden, while  Stäfa and Richterswil are at its widest span of 3.85 km.

The Fraumünster church seen with on the right with its tall conical tower

 My son feeding the swans while my wife and younger son watch

 My younger son too had a photo of his taken while feeding the swans

The water of Lake Zurich is extremely good quality and it is supplied to its surrounding region with the majority of its drinking water flowing from taps and fountains.

   

Lake Zürich's water is very clean and reaches, during summer, temperatures well beyond 20 °C (68 °F). Swimming in the public baths and beaches is very popular. Historically, the best weather for swimming has been late August, with August 28 typically having the nicest weather at around 17:30h. The lake's water is purified and fed into Zürich's water system; it is potable.

 Reflections

We saw the huge steamer slowly moving past us and docking a little away from us. My sons went to see if there was another trip planned - but we were too late for that as the last trip had just finished in front of us and a missed opportunity to listen to the splashes of Lake Zürich water against the steamer while being on board.

My son with Grossmünster church with its two typical twin towers in the center of the photo

The Grossmünster or “Great Minister” or “Great Cathedral” was constructed around 1100 and inaugurated around 1220. It is built on the banks of the Limmat River and it is distinguished by its twin towers, as seen in the photo above.

The Limmat River commences at the outfall of Lake Zurich, in the centre of the city of Zurich. From Zurich it flows in a northwesterly direction, after 35 km reaching the river Aare. 

My son standing on the bridge over Limmat River with Grossmünster church (left) and a tram (right) in the background

So while I and my wife waited at a bench a little away from the bridge, my sons got a chance to move around, have a few snaps before coming back to us and heading for our third and last destination in Zürich.

While my sons were away, I took a couple of photographs of my wife with my Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone camera with Lake Zürich and city skyline in the background.

Although sitting there by the Lake Zürich and enjoy the coolness in the air due to cold water of the lake, and we could have sat there for hours but we had one last destination of Zürich waiting for us - the final days of the Zürich Film Festival. 

So hurried to the venue to have glimpse of some of the actors and actresses, the film previews and at the end the most delicious ice cream flavours of Movenpick rich with indigenous and pure Swiss milk, cream and fruits. Stay tuned for my next post - which would also be my last post of Zürich as tomorrow we would be heading to Italy!! 

My earlier posts on Switzerland:

To Switzerland - my childhood dream comes true

Two days and two nights in Lichtensteig, Switzerland

Coffee morning in Switzerland

A day in Zurich

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