Category: Entertainment

The world premieres of two major German films, Andreas Dresen’s “Love, After All” and Doris Dörrie’s “How Can I Help?,” are among 10 titles to feature in the Gala Premieres section of Zurich Film Festival.

The selection also includes Oscar contenders “I Play Rocky” and “Josephine,” and Switzerland’s most anticipated film, “111 – Echoes From Halifax.”

Christian Jungen, CEO of the festival, said the section is “dedicated to auteur cinema for a broader audience.”

“We are particularly delighted that two major figures of German auteur cinema, Andreas Dresen and Doris Dörrie, have entrusted us with the world premieres of their new films,” Jungen said. “Their films are grounded in everyday life and, with a little wink, reflect on the state of our society.”

He added, “We present films that will play an important role later in the award season, such as ‘I Play Rocky.’” The film tells the story behind the making of the cult classic starring Sylvester Stallone, which won the Academy Award for best picture in 1977.

Jungen explained that, from a Swiss perspective, “111 – Echoes From Halifax” deserves special mention. “From multiple perspectives, the film sheds light on a major event that shook our nation: the crash of a Swissair aircraft near Halifax,” he said.

The full program of the 22nd Zurich Film Festival, which runs Sept. 24 to Oct. 4, will be revealed on Sept. 9.

I PLAY ROCKY
European Premiere
Biography
U.S., 2026
Director: Peter Farrelly
Cast: Anthony Ippolito, Matt Dillon, Stephan James, AnnaSophia Robb, PJ Byrne, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Jay Duplass
Unknown actor Sylvester Stallone is writing a screenplay titled “Rocky” that a studio is desperate to acquire. But Stallone refuses to sell the rights – unless he gets to play the lead himself. Despite numerous setbacks and rejections, he remains determined to make his dream a reality: playing Rocky Balboa. The result is the ultimate underdog story behind the legendary underdog film.

JOSEPHINE
Drama
U.S., 2026
Director: Beth de Araújo
Cast: Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, Mason Lily Reeves
When 8-year-old Josephine witnesses a violent crime, her world is out of joint. She is trying to find a way to regain a sense of security. While her emphatic mother (Gemma Chan) wants to help her process what happened, her father (Channing Tatum) believes in preparing Josephine for the harsher realities of life but increasingly finds himself overwhelmed by the situation. With the suspense of a thriller, director Beth de Araújo tells a deeply empathetic family drama about fear and the limits of parental care. Channing Tatum gives one of his strongest performances in this year’s great Sundance Film Festival sensation.

111 – ECHOES FROM HALIFAX
European Premiere
Drama
Switzerland, Canada, 2026
Director: Mauro Mueller
Cast: Ursina Lardi, Kris Holden-Ried, Djebril Zonga, Fathia Youssouf, Natalie Brown
On Sept. 2, 1998, the crash of Swissair Flight 111 off Halifax changes the lives of many people forever: relatives struggle for certainty about their loved ones, helpers try to offer comfort, and the residents of the Canadian coast are confronted with the traces of tragedy. As time passes and questions remain unanswered, the film shows how grief connects, relationships change, and new perspectives emerge. Mauro Mueller’s film is a quiet, poignant drama about loss, memory and the power of human closeness.

COMPANY
Mystery
Canada, U.S., UAE, 2026
Director: Casey Affleck
Cast: Nick Nolte, Ben Mendelsohn, Adelaide Clemens, Scoot McNairy, Emily Alyn Lind, Caylee Cowan
On a winter night in 1975, a mysterious woman named Evelyn arrives uninvited at a holiday gathering and tells the story of Tom, an aging hermit who rescues a stranded actress during a Colorado blizzard in 1953. To pass the night, the actress recounts an older tale of a farming couple who take in a troubled young drifter as a series of grisly murders spreads fear across the frontier. As the stories intertwine across generations, “Company” becomes a meditation on grief, vengeance, forgiveness and the quiet acts of compassion that can heal even the deepest wounds.

POSSIBLE LOVE
Drama
South Korea, 2026
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Cast: Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung, Cho Yeo-jeong
“Possible Love” follows the intertwined relationship of two married couples facing different paths and hidden desires. Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) lives quietly with her laid-off husband Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) and their young son Cheol until a funeral brings them into the orbit of Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), a documentary filmmaker chronicling laid-off workers, and her husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung) – a couple whose affluent lifestyle stands in sharp contrast to their own. When Mi-ok agrees to be filmed, she grows close to Ye-ji, and finds herself uneasily drawn to the unreadable Sang-woo. As their worlds collide, fractures begin to appear in their daily existence. Marking his first release in eight years, highly acclaimed director Lee Chang-dong (“Burning,” “Poetry,” “Secret Sunshine”) brings his signature nuance to “Possible Love,” capturing shifting emotions, conflicts, and contrasting outlooks that shape these relationships.

LOVE, AFTER ALL
World Premiere
Tragicomedy
Germany, 2026
Director: Andreas Dresen
Cast: Dagmar Manzel, Joachim Król
Lore (Dagmar Manzel) and Harry (Joachim Król) have been married for nearly 40 years and there is rarely a moment of silence between them. Old stories, missed chances and the uncertainties of retirement fuel heated discussions. Lore is afraid of growing old and bitter in the garden alongside Harry while he longs for stability and peace. There is only one thing they agree on: Their daughter Gloria has little luck in love. Now, she wants to get married for the third time – this time to a wealthy man who is almost the same age as Harry. A warm-hearted love story inspired by real life, drawing the audience in with its authentic characters and lots of humor.

IT WILL HAPPEN TONIGHT
Romance
Italy, France, Spain, 2026
Director: Nanni Moretti
Cast: Louis Garrel, Jasmine Trinca, Hippolyte Girardot, Angela Finocchiaro, Melina Åkerman Kvie, Elena Lietti, Andrea Lattanzi, Antonio De Matteo, Nanni Moretti
I’ll wait for you, for as long as you want me to. But will it ever happen?

BURGUNDY
Documentary
France, 2026
Director: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
Cast: Enzo Ferraroli, Céleste Kalis, Eric Goettelmann, Patrick Maniere, Guillaume Baroin, Bertrand Devillard
Burgundy is one of the world’s most famous wine regions. Through the eyes of novices in hospitality and viticulture, the film offers a fascinating glimpse into its unique wine culture, where time-honored traditions live on in rituals centered on luxury and indulgence. Blending documentary and fictional elements, directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw pay homage to the remarkable and charming people whose zest for life shapes and preserves this unique region and its centuries-old culture.

HOW CAN I HELP?
World Premiere
Drama/Comedy
Germany, 2026
Director: Doris Dörrie
Cast: Angela Winkler, Laura Tonke, Josef Ellers, Via Jikeli, Eugene Boateng, Zoë Baier
Mrs. Winkler has a fall and becomes a nursing case. Her daughter, overwhelmed by her needs, hires a care robot. After some initial resistance, Mrs. Winkler grows quite fond of him. He takes perfect care of her and keeps her entertained – except that he is also supposed to kill her in case her condition deteriorates further…

THE HAMMER
World Premiere
Documentary
France, U.S., 2026
Director: Simon Wallon
Cast: Simon de Pury, Jeff Koons, Marina Abramović, Chloe Wise, Lou Zhenggang
A documentary portrait of famed auctioneer Simon de Pury, whose career saw him leading auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Phillips, being the curator of major world collections, an artist, even a DJ, and always being an unavoidable personality “the Mick Jagger of auctions” takes us behind the curtain of the extravagant art market. Art fairs, collectors’ homes, artists’ studios, galas… The film is a welcoming and entertaining dive amongst the 1% and explores the complicated relationship between artists and commerce. Ultimately, it questions what it means to be an artist today. It was shot between New York, Tokyo, London, Cannes, Miami and Monaco.

Most Deep Purple fans had long since given up any hope of seeing the band ever share a stage with founding guitarist Ritchie Blackmore again, due to a well-know, decades-long estrangement. But that’s exactly what took place near the end of the group’s show Wednesday night at Jones Beach in New York, as hatchets were buried and Blackmore rejoined his old mates for a rendition of the group’s most famous song, “Smoke on the Water.”

“It’s gonna be interesting,” Blackmore said in a podcast appearance the night before the show, in which the 81-year-old guitar legend leaked news of his imminent appearance. “i have not played rock music in 25 years.”

At the conclusion of “Smoke in the Water” Wednesday, singer Ian Gillan showered praise on his ex-bandmate before he left the stage. “A couple of days ago I got a message from a local lad… saying ‘I only live around the corner, do you mind if I come and jam with you?’ It was an absolute pleasure to have back on stage the founding member, the great legend,”the immortal Ritchie Blackmore. Thanks, Ritchie. i have to say, it was a great pleasure. I’ll see you in the bar.”

Probably few in the audience were taken by complete surprise by Blackmore’s cameo, since the previous night, the guitarist had spilled some of the beans in a livestream conversation with his wife, singer Candice Night, the evening before the Jones Beach gig. Blackmore said on Tuesday’s live podcast that he was revealing the secret in advance because he wanted fans who had waited for this moment for decades to at least have a shot at making it to New York in time for Wednesday’s show.

Blackmore, who co-founded Deep Purple in 1968, had a fallout with other members in 1993 that resulted in him leaving the lineup in 1993 for the second and last time. The fallout was bad enough that Blackmore did not show up at the band’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2016, after being told that the currently touring lineup — which still includes three original or near-original members in Gillan, drummer Ian Paice and bassist Roger Glover — would not reunite with him under any circumstances, even for a short, one-off performance at the ceremony.

So hell seemed to have frozen over when Gillan recently sent a message gingerly asking if he could come up on stage for one number at a tour date… and the band proved surprisingly agreeable to that notion, after so much water under the bridge.

“it is a secret and i don’t want anybody to know, but I’m probably going to go up and do an encore with the band, Deep Purple,” Blackmore blurted about eight minutes into the livestream with his wife, singer Candice Night. “But you can’t tell anybody, and I know this will be kept a secret. won’t it?” he joked, even as the web lit up with the news quickly being spread among hard rock buffs.

Blackmore explained the genesis of this unexpected reunion: “I sent my AI pigeon to Ian Gillan in Portugal, where he lives at the moment, and I said, ‘How would you feel if I got up just for an encore on one of the songs. Don’t want to intrude.’ And I said, ‘No pressure, just kind of old times’ sake.’ You know, I’m 81 now. So (Gillan) seemed to li0e the idea, put it to the band, got a thumbs up, and it looks like we might be doing that.”

The guitarist admitted he was hardly in practice for a performance with Deep Purple, given the drift in his musical focus since 1993, as he moved on to gentler brand of folk-rock with Blackmore’s Night, the band fronted by his wife.

“I changed my strings on my Strat, which i haven’t done in over 25 years,” he revealed. “It’s kind of frightening. I haven’t played rock in 25 years. I’ve been playing acoustic guitar for 25 years. And at first i was very uncomfortable playing (acoustic guitar), but i got used to it, and now I’m more used to playing the acoustic, more so than the electric.”

He said he needed some medical assistance in being able to withstand “Smoke on the Water.”

“I did have my injection in my lumbar area yesterday,” he explained on the podcast, of needing a steroid shot. “it’s a special injection i have that enables me to stand in one spot, because if I’m playing a Strat, i have a hard time… I have four herniated discs, if anybody wants them. And I had my injection yesterday of a steroid which helps me get through standing on stage. But I have kind of a stool there, just in case I start toppling over or something.”

Of his reasons for giving fans 24 hours’ notice, he said he “wanted to warn the people living in Romania, so they could fly over… Not really. I just thought it might be an idea to let a few people know because I think a lot of people would like to see that.”

His announcement of sitting in with the group concluded with the thoughts: “I hope people enjoy it.” And: “it will be good to see the old guys again.”

Fans from afar turned to the web to look for footage of the show. Perrin Wolfson and Jimmy Kay of the Metal Voice podcast livestreame through the latter part of Deep Purple’s set, waiting for confirmation that it had gone down, and putting up photos and video that were shared with them from inside the show. “History has been made,” Wolfson and Kay crowed as they first got word “Smoke in the Water” was in progress with Blackmore aboard. “I feel like we just walked on the moon.”