Zurich Film Festival Heads on Theatrical-Loving Gen Z, Prioritizing Private Equity and Tilly Norwood a Year Later: This Is the ‘Place Where You Address the Real Hot Questions’

If one film could define this year’s Zurich Film Festival, it would be Peter Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky,” a heartfelt drama about the making of the Sylvester Stallone-starring classic that is playing as one of the festival galas. The film embodies not only the festival’s 2026 motto of “Dream Big,” but also a go-getter attitude that saw CEO Christian Jungen buy out former owner — Swiss newspaper NZZ — and lead the festival alongside an investment team that secured private funds to ensure the event’s continuity and independence. A year on from the bold strategic move, Jungen is confident in its success and the advantages it brings for the future.

Speaking with Variety ahead of this year’s edition from an office decorated from wall to wall with prized “Rocky” collector items — think golden gloves, intricate statues and vintage posters — Jungen says the Farrelly film has been a great source of inspiration for this year’s festival. “It’s a film about a big dream. In these rough times, when it’s very tough to finance films, that’s something that is going to speak to everybody in the industry. I am sure it will be embraced broadly in our industry and with audiences. It’s a crowdpleaser.”

Jungen says delivering the festival is now “easier because we are independent.” “In these polarized times, we got caught up in political discussions,” he adds, referring to the NZZ’s right-wing-leaning editorial line. “Now it’s all about cinema again. Not that it wasn’t before, of course, but when you belong to a newspaper, and they have strong opinions, you risk becoming collateral damage.”

“We found new partners for the first time in five years, which is good because it’s very challenging to finance cultural events,” he went on. “Most partners want to be part of emotional stories. It’s more about telling stories together than about visibility. Ten years ago, they paid money, and you put their logo on the photo wall. Today, they want to offer their employees or clients an emotional evening, and are very interested in having talent on stage. That doesn’t mean just big Hollywood stars.”

But it is indeed a starry roster, with the likes of Martin McDonagh, Anna Kendrick, Jesse Eisenberg, Tom Hiddleston and Naomi Watts all landing in the Swiss city over the next few days. The festival, which kicks off with the European premiere of the Hiddleston-starring “Tenzing,” will host European premieres of several other major fall festival titles, including Chris Rock’s “Misty Green,” Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky” and Lauren Miller Rogen’s “Babies,” starring Kendrick and Seth Rogen. Other major titles such as “Bunker,” “Ink,” “Club Kid,” “The Debut” and “Wild Horse Nine” will also bow at the festival.

Jungen remains focused on making Zurich a strong awards launchpad. “After the first premiere, films need a second turf to display their stars and start a conversation,” he says. “The good thing abut Zurich is you have a film-friendly audience and, at the same time, we are the door to the German-speaking world, which is a $100 million market. We are a real test with audiences, and our positioning is glamorous. For us, it’s important to be a platform with a real audience, but also to have an impact with Academy or Golden Globe voters.”

“We are at the end of fall festival season, and many of the decision-makers from the industry who were in Venice went over to Toronto and are maybe doing San Sebastián, and have Zurich as their last stop, where they finally have time to watch a movie,” he notes. “It just so happened that, over the last years, films that had their European premiere in Zurich, whether it was ‘Green Book’ or ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ were successful at the Oscars. This could be the case for ‘I Play Rocky’ or ‘Tenzing.’”

Zurich is also a great city for theatrical exhibition, featuring 63 movie theaters for a population of 440,000, making it one of the strongest exhibition capitals in the world. And the festival has a young audience eager to fill those seats.

“Gen Z is reawakening cinema,” says festival director and co-owner Reta Guetg. “That is really cool, and I think only the start of a wave that will keep growing. Our young programming team was raving about Rhys Marc Jones’s ‘Black Church Bay,’ a thriller starring Joe Locke, who is also one of our guests. The film is a world premiere; it has amazing direction, really interesting cast. These kinds of films help shape the program. We try to be at the forefront of discovering new talent.”

This interest in new talent doesn’t come only from audiences, but it is also shared by the high-profile executives travelling into town for the festival’s highly prestigious industry sidebar, the Zurich Summit. “They are always asking me: who are the creatives this year? Who is the up-and-coming talent? What should we see? They are actually more interested than you would think in new talent,” says Guetg.

“We have a panel this year with the CEO of the Oscars, Bill Kramer, who will sit next to [‘Obsession’ director] Kane Parsons, a 20-year-old still living with his parents in San Francisco, and a sensation who cracked 4 million admissions in cinemas,” she adds. “And they are both eager to hear from each other. It’s a great space to make these connections happen because we have a lot of openness from both sides.”

A year ago, the Summit made major headlines when it introduced the market to AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood, launched by AI talent studio Xicoia. Asked about Norwood’s impact — and controversies — in the year since, Jungen says, “Zurich is the place where you address the real hot questions.”

“AI is the big game changer of our times,” he goes on. “In my mind, it’s bigger than the introduction of the internet in the late 90s. We didn’t expect the reactions to Tilly Norwood last year, but it proves there is a lot of energy in those questions. The Zurich Summit takes place in neutral Switzerland; it’s where everybody finds common ground, where Americans meet Europeans. We have a tradition of being a platform for exchange and openness.”

The festival will also bring back the Film Finance Forum, an event even more exclusive than the already exclusive Summit. The Forum takes place a day before the conference and brings together bankers, investors and major producers for closed-door discussions on film financing.

“We want to put our international guests in an exchange with the people from the finance industry here,” says Jungen. “Quite a few companies have found investors for their businesses at the Zurich Summit, and that’s a role we want to play. We want to turn Zurich into a platform where you get access to private equity because this is the way to go, as the pre-sale business is truly challenging.”

“With private equity, we can move faster, produce faster, and since Zurich is literally the world capital of wealth management boutiques, I think we have a lot of stakeholders who might be interested in hearing from the lion’s mouth, from people from Los Angeles or New York who can say that investing in film can mean a return,” says the festival head. “Investing in film — it’s not just about supporting the arts; it’s business.”