Oscar campaign launched in Los Angeles

"La petite chambre" (The Little Room) will be presented in the Wilshire Screening Room at the Academy in Beverly Hills together with twelve further films from Europe that are in the running for an Oscar nomination on Sunday, November 7. The partner of the showcase organised by the European Film Promotion is the "The Hollywood Reporter," an industry magazine. With its stand at the AFM, the European Film Promotion Organisation, of which SWISS FILMS is a founding member, provides a platform for the distribution of the films in the USA. Negotiations with a distributor are already under way. This initial stage of drawing attention to the films - for which a SWISS FILMS press attaché is active in CA - is followed by the screening of the films and the two directors at the Palm Springs Film Festival in January. The festival in Palm Springs is held shortly before the nominations from all the 65 films submitted from all over the world are announced (on January 25, 2011).

Christian Frei, who was nominated for an Oscar for his documentary film "War Photographer" in 2002, will be a guest at the University of Southern California from November 1-5. The university's film school is closely connected with Hollywood; instructors at the university include George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, among others. The retrospective programme is comprised of "War Photographer" (2001), "Ricardo, Miriam y Fidel" (1997) and "The Giant Buddhas" (2005) and, in particular, his most recent film "Space Tourists", which garnered Frei the World Cinema Directing Award 2010 in Sundance. The films by the president of the Swiss Film Academy will also be screened this week at Raleigh Studios Hollywood. "Space Tourists" is up for an Academy Award nomination in the Documentary Feature category.

Zurich, November 2, 2010