The Circle wins four trophies at 2015 Swiss Film Award
Bern, 13.03.2015 - The work and achievements of the Swiss film industry were feted at the 18th Swiss Film Award ceremony this evening. The docufiction film The Circle was the night’s biggest winner, scooping four awards including Best Feature Film. Other winners were Electroboy, which picked up two Quartz trophies, while Sabine Timoteo and Sven Schelker were crowned Best Actress and Best Actor, respectively. This gala event, attended by Federal Councillor Alain Berset, was held at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices in Geneva and streamed live on SRF, RTS and RSI.
The Circle by Stefan Haupt won a total of four Quartz trophies. As well as taking home the Best Feature Film award, the director shared the award for Best Screenplay with his co-writers Christian Felix, Ivan Madeo and Urs Frey. Sven Schelker was crowned Best Actor and Peter Jecklin won the award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role.
The award for Best Documentary Film went to Electroboy by Marcel Gisler. The documentary also won the Best Film Editing award, with Thomas Bachmann taking home a Quartz trophy for his outstanding work. Other winners were Discipline by Christophe M. Saber (Best Short Film) and Timber (Best Animated Film). Sabine Timoteo won the Best Actress award for her performance in The Drift, while Mathieu Urfer, Marcin de Morsier, John Woolloff and Ariel Garcia took home the Best Film Score award for Pause. The Best Cinematography award went to Lorenz Merz for Chrieg. The Special Academy Award went to Patrick Lindenmaier for his contribution to Swiss motion picture design. He has worked on several of the films nominated this year for a Swiss Film Award, including Electroboy, Thuletuvalu, Broken Land, Chubby and The Shelter.
Jean-Luc Godard was the recipient of the 2015 Honorary Award in recognition of his outstanding body of work. For health reasons, he was not able to collect the award in person. However, the director sent a video message greeting the guests. Federal Councillor, Alain Berset, paid tribute to the contribution that the internationally acclaimed director has made during his career: “Your films blend genres and forms. They transform the banal into poetry. They are deftly suffused with a knowing amateurism, with cheerless folly and joyous pessimism. They are sometimes sociological, sometimes political. They are the melody of phrases, the grammar of sound. Your work is to cinema what jazz is to music.”
The Swiss Film Award is produced by the Federal Office of Culture, together with its partners, SRG SSR and the Association Quartz Genève Zürich, and organised in collaboration with Swiss Films, the Swiss Film Academy and the Solothurn Film Festival.
The 2016 Swiss Film Award ceremony will be held on Friday, 18th March 2016 at the Schiffbau in Zurich.
Press photos of the award ceremony:
Press photos of the ceremony will be available on the official SFA website, www.schweizerfilmpreis.ch (under “Media”), as of 10 pm.
Address for enquiries
Ursula Pfander, press officer, 2015 Swiss Film Award, +41 (0)79 628 22 71, media@schweizerfilmpreis.ch
Publisher
Federal Office of Cultural Affairs
http://www.bak.admin.ch
