* Wald and Dead Girl Dancing at Zurich Film Festival 2023 *

2023 was another successful year for Zurich Film Festival.

The 19th edition of Zurich Film Festival attracted 130’000 visitors (slightly less than the previous year). A total of 150 films were screened, 52 of them as World or European premieres – more than ever before.

First held in 2005, Zurich Film Festival established itself very quickly on the national and international film festival scene. The formula for its success it's probably a mix of an attractive location: an international but small city of Zurich; a great selection of movies and different programs/events like ZFF Masters, ZFF for Kids and a few others. This year the festival brought back to life ex-Kosmos, emerging as a Frame, and continuing to be my favourite place to watch movies. Based on the feedback, this cinema complex was also a crowd-puller for the rest of the audience.

The best way to explain Zurich Film Festival's success is to quote/paraphrase the sentence I found in the industry booklet a few years ago. Basically, the organizers agree on a few basics for a successful film festival: "content is king, collaboration is key and encounters among creative folks are essential". I am glad to confirm that even after this many years, the organizers are still taking "these basics" seriously while developing the festival further and, most importantly, in the right direction.

And this is why I keep coming back and reviewing this festival.

From the perspective of Gimme A Beat, exploring the female factor of the festival is easy. Zurich Film Festival always provides a significant number of female stories and movies from female directors, and a good balance of different genres, aspiring filmmakers and (potential) blockbusters. As listeners of Gimme A Beat (and my family and friends) already know, having a busy schedule is business as usual for me, and with so many great movies, definitely a pleasure. For me, Zurich Film Festival is all about watching movies. My most enjoyable moment is sitting in the dark cinema, fully immersed in the storyline. This year, even if many fabulous events were happening on the festival grounds, I haven't attended/seen any of them.

Most importantly, I have seen 30+ movies and managed to get together with 4 female filmmakers and two lead actresses.

With more material than ever before I decided to dedicate two whole Gimme A Beats to Zurich Film Festival, the one happening tonight and another one in November.

Considering the number of movies I've seen (30+), I will not be reviewing all the movies and posting them on the Gimme A Beat page. But, I will continue posting the reviews after tonight's show until the end of the year since most of the movies from the festival are coming to the cinemas next year. Different than in previous years, this year I will be focusing on my highlights only. To find them you should follow the search with the following hashtags: #zff #zff2023 #highlight #gimmeabeat.

In tonight's Gimme A Beat, I will be focusing on the following movies:

- Wald / Woodland, directed and written by Elisabeth Scharang, with Brigitte Hobmeier as a lead actress. I had a chance to interview both of them.

- Dead Girls Dancing, directed and written by Anna Roller, who I had a chance to interview.

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