Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion will open this year’s Zurich Film Festival.
The action-thriller, which boasts an all-star cast, including Laurence Fishburne, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet and Marion Cotillard, unspools Sept. 22, kicking off the fest, which runs through Oct. 2.
Contagion, which also stars Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Bryan Cranston, centers on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to deal with the outbreak.
The Warner Bros. release was produced by Soderbergh, Gregory Jacobs, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher from a screenplay by Scott Z. Burns.
Fishburne will also be on hand at the fest to serve as international jury prexy. The fest will also honor Fishburne, who has appeared in such productions as The Matrix trilogy, Mystic River, What’s Love Got To Do With It and the upcoming Man Of Steel, with a special achievement award.
Also serving on the international feature film jury are U.S. producer John Lesher, Beki Probst, head of Berlin’s European Film Market and Swiss-based exhib operator, Danish actress, director and writer Paprika Steen (Applause), British actress Alice Eve (The Raven) and Serbian writer-director Stevan Arsenijevic (Love And Other Crimes).
On the fest’s international documentary jury will be:
Academy-award winning director, producer and writer Charles Ferguson (Inside Job); U.K. producer John Battsek (Project Nim, The Tillman Story); Georgian filmmaker Nino Kirtadze (Durakovo: Village Of Fools); Dutch director Eline Flipse (Our Newspaper); and U.S. producer Stephen Nemeth (Under The Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story).
Entering its seventh year, the Zurich Film Festival has established itself as a marquee European event, showcasing a diverse array of international films, many from young up-and-coming filmmakers.
Source: Variety
