* Black Box Diaries and Es Gehts Um Luis/About Luis at Zurich Film Festival 2024 *

Paglalarawan

2024 was an even more successful year for Zurich Film Festival than its organizers expected. It was an important year as the Zurich Film Festival festival celebrated its 20th year. The dates moved to the beginning of October, but that didn't stop the visitors. This year the festival attracted 140’000 visitors (even more than the previous year). A total of 107 films were shown, including 17 world premieres, 8 international premieres, and 11 European premieres – every 3rd film is a world, international, or European premiere. First held in 2005, Zurich Film Festival established itself very quickly on the national and international film festival scene. Looking at all these years I have been visiting or reviewing (since 2017) Zurich Film Festival. The way I like to explain its success is to quote/paraphrase the sentence I found in the industry booklet a few years ago. Basically, the organizers agree on a few basics for a successful film festival: "Content is king, Collaboration is key and Encounters among creative folks are essential". I am glad to confirm that even after many years, the organizers are still taking "these basics" seriously while developing the festival further and, most importantly, in the right direction. This is why I keep coming back and reviewing Zurich Film Festival. From the perspective of Gimme A Beat, exploring *the female factor* of the festival is easy. Zurich Film Festival always provides a significant number of female stories and movies from female directors, and a good balance of different genres, aspiring filmmakers, and (potential) blockbusters. As listeners of Gimme A Beat (and my family and friends) already know, having a busy schedule is business as usual for me, and with so many great movies, definitely a pleasure. For me, Zurich Film Festival is all about watching movies. My most enjoyable moment is sitting in the dark cinema, fully immersed in the storyline. This year, even if many fabulous events were happening on the festival grounds, I haven't attended/seen any of them. Most