Women sweep major Swiss film awards upended by pandemic

Women are the big winners of the 2020 Swiss Film Award ceremony* which should have taken place on March 27. They won eight of the 11 prizes at stake.

The Belgian-Swiss co-production “Le milieu de l’horizon” (Beyond the Horizon) by Delphine Lehericey was selected as the best fiction film. Joanne Giger received the prize for best screenplay for the same.

The prize for best documentary went to “Immer und ewig” (The Journey – A Story of Love) by Fanny Bräuning. Olivia Pedroli, who composed the music for this documentary, received the prize for best music.

Since the awards ceremony had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation – swissinfo.ch’s parent company – will present a special programme devoted to Swiss cinema on the evening of March 27.

The organisers said the prizes will be awarded during a ceremony as part of the annual Locarno film festival in August.

The Swiss film award is the national prize first given out by the Federal Office of Culture in 1998.

* a previous version of this news story referred to  Zurich film festival prize