Richard Linklater Set For Zurich Film Festival Honorary Award

U.S. director Richard Linklater will be feted with a Career Achievement Award at the Zurich Film Festival this fall.

The festival said it was honoring Linklater as one of the most influential auteur filmmakers of American independent cinema, highlighting his Before trilogy and Oscar-winning drama Boyhood as films that had redefined cinema and shaped an entire generation.

Starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy the Before trilogy – spanning Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013), revisits a long-term romance across nine-year intervals, while Boyhood was shot over the course of more than a decade to tell the story of a boy growing up inTexas with divorced parents (Patricia Arquette and Hawke).

Nominated in six categories in the 2015 Oscars, the latter film won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Arquette.

“Richard Linklater is one of the most visionary and formative directors of American independent cinema,” said ZFF CEO Christian Jungen. “Through naturalistic dialogue and scenes that feel plucked straight from life, he holds up a mirror to our times and regularly brings out the very best in his actors.

“He is also the director of my absolute favourite film, Before Sunrise, thanks to which I met my wife. I am therefore especially delighted to welcome him to Zurich and to share with our audiences the films that have moved me for so many years.”

The director will accept the award in person on 28 September 28. As part of the honor, the ZFF is presenting an extensive retrospective of Linklater’s work in collaboration with the Filmpodium Zurich and the Cinémathèque suisse. Linklater will also offer insights into his career during a public ZFF Masters.

“I am truly honoured to receive the Career Achievement Award from the Zurich Film Festival. When Christian and I met at the Golden Globes, I mentioned I’ve always wanted to attend one day and now seemed like the right time. I’m delighted that this award is the occasion that brings me there, and I very much look forward to celebrating with the European audience that has meant so much to me throughout my career,” said Linklater.

Aside from filmmaking, Linklater also serves as the Artistic Director for the Austin Film Society, which he founded in 1985 to showcase films from around the world that were not typically shown in Austin. The Austin Film Society has grown into one of the country’s largest film organizations, operating a repertory theater, managing a film studio, a public access TV studio with over 600 hundred producers, and awarding over $3,000,000 in grants to Texas filmmakers since 1996.

The 22nd Zurich Film Festival will run from September 24 to October 4.