Swiss Film Award 2016: Honorary Award goes to Renato Berta

The 2016 Honorary Award for Swiss Film goes to Renato Berta. The award acknowledges a cinematographer whose career has profoundly influenced European auteur cinema over recent decades.

25.02.2016

The 2016 Honorary Award for Swiss Film goes to Renato Berta. The award acknowledges a cinematographer whose career has profoundly influenced European auteur cinema over recent decades. Federal Councillor Alain Berset will present the “Quartz” to Berta at the Swiss Film Award ceremony in Zurich on March 18.

The cinematographer from the Italian part of Switzerland is considered a key figure in the renaissance of Swiss cinema in the 1970s. The Federal Office of Culture (FOC) presents the Honorary Award to Renato Berta for his life’s work in the field of cinematography as part of the Swiss Film Award 2016. The award is endowed with CHF 30,000

The early stages of Renato Berta’s career are closely linked to the emerging Swiss Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) movement; he worked on films directed by Alain Tanner, Daniel Schmid or Claude Goretta. The same period marked the beginning of his long collaboration with the French filmmakers Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Berta has also worked regularly together with the film directors Alain Resnais, Louis Malle, Amos Gitai and Manoel de Oliveira. Not only has Berta had a lasting effect on European auteur cinema, he also introduced new images and techniques to the Swiss screen. Most recently Berta collaborated with Philippe Garrel for “In The Shadow of Women” (2015) and with Paule Muret for “For This Is My Body” (2015).

The 19th Swiss Film Award ceremony takes place in Zurich on Friday, March 18, 2016. This tribute to Swiss cinema is organised by the Federal Office of Culture, SRG SSR and the Association “Quartz” Genève Zürich, in collaboration with SWISS FILMS, the Swiss Film Academy and the Solothurn Film Festival.

SWISS FILMS, 25.02.2016