At the 13th Zurich Film Festival, IWC Schaffhausen gave out the third Filmmaker Award at their recent gala dinner event “For the Love of Cinema.” They chose to give the award and the CHF 100,000 grant to producer Valentin Greutert, to facilitate their current project “Paradise War.” Shooting on the film is scheduled to begin soon, and the support will go a long way towards facilitating that.
The Filmmaker Award was established by the Association for the Promotion of Film in Switzerland (Verein zur Filmförderung in der Schweiz) with the goal of supporting Swiss film projects in an advanced stage of production. Thus, the Award and the financial grant will help the producers to complete and distribute “Paradise War.”
Niklaus Hilber is directing this story of Swiss-born Bruno Manser, and his struggle to help the indigenous people in Malaysia fight against deforestation. Manser lived in Malaysia for many years, and he joined the Penan people in their nonviolent fight against the destruction of the rainforest. The Malaysian rainforest is home to countless species of wildlife, including many species that are now endangered, like the Orangutan. The Penan tribe were peacefully striving to maintain their home ecosystem, and Bruno Manser took up their cause as his own. However, on his last journey to the rainforest, Manser vanished, never to resurface. “Paradise Wars” will tell the story of that struggle, and hopefully bring to light some of the important reasons behind this man’s selfless life and mysterious unsolved disappearance.
“Paradise War” was the selection of the jury for this year’s award, but the three finalists were all of such excellent worth that the panelists found it hard to choose. “The projects submitted this year were of such high quality and so diverse that it was again difficult for us to choose a winner. We hope that the Filmmaker Award will help bring Bruno Manser’s story to cinema screens in Switzerland as well as abroad,” said CEO of IWC, Christoph Grainger-Herr at the award ceremony.
The Filmmaker Award was given out at the “For Love of Cinema” dinner by American actor James Marsden. Marsden along with IWC Schaffhausen also gave the director an IWC Portugieser Automatic watch (Ref. IW500703.) Marsden is an actor who has proven himself well beyond his boyish good looks, as he portrayed an excellent balance of sincere Old Hollywood charm and raw brutalized desperation in last year’s “Westworld” TV series. As the robot cowboy hero Teddy Flood, he is both forever the leading man champion and the cruelly manipulated tool constantly being shot down in cold blood for the guests’ amusement. Marsden’s skills have found a true outlet in “Westworld,” and audiences are looking forward to his upcoming performance in Rob Reiner’s film “Shock and Awe,” which also premiered at the 13th Zurich Film Festival.
