People The 20th Zurich Film Festival opens with Jude Law

The 20th Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) opened on Thursday with a host of celebrities from the worlds of culture, politics and show business. The star guest was British actor Jude Law, who presented his latest film "The Order" in Zurich.

The Hollywood star, who is known from films such as "The Talented Mr. Ripley", "The Holiday" and "Sherlock Holmes", was relatively simple in his thanks for his Golden Eye Award. He feels honored and is looking forward to presenting his latest film in Zurich, said the 51-year-old. "I love making movies and talking about them." His profession is also his passion.

Jude Law was honored at the Zurich Film Festival both for his acting performances in the opening film and for those in previous years.

The speeches by Zurich Mayor Corine Mauch and Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider before Law's acceptance speech provided plenty of laughs. The former told a humorous short story about how she would abuse her office for private purposes if British actress Tilda Swinton were in the room instead of Jude Law.

Baume-Schneider also contrasted Jude Law's high-profile visit with an explicit tribute to female filmmakers. "Without them, cinema would not be where it is today," she said, "without the women - and Jude Law."

Among others, singer Baschi, music talent Nemo, model Manuela Frey and Zurich "Tatort" detectives Carol Schuler and Anna Pieri Zuercher had dressed up to walk the green carpet on Thursday evening.

Several Hollywood celebrities expected

107 films are on this year's festival program, including 16 from Switzerland. In addition to Jude Law, the ZFF line-up also promises several Hollywood celebrities: Kate Winslet, Richard Gere and Pamela Anderson are expected to appear over the next few days.

According to Festival Director Christian Jungen in his celebratory speech, this high density of celebrities is "a thank you to everyone who has helped to make the Zurich Film Festival great".

Swiss humor is being honored with Emil Steinberger. Steinberger, who can be seen in the documentary "Typisch Emil", will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Zurich Film Festival ended a potential controversy in advance: the controversial film "Russians at war" by Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova will not be shown after all for security reasons. There had recently been protests at the Toronto Film Festival about the film and accusations that it was Russian war propaganda.

Trofimova, who used to work as a journalist for the Kremlin-affiliated media group "Russia Today", had already denied the accusations. She had worked independently and had not obtained permission for the film from the Russian Ministry of Defense.

SDA