McDonagh Gets Zurich Film Festival Honorary Award
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- Zurich Film Festival will honor Martin McDonagh with its A Tribute To … Award at its 22nd edition in September, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to cinema.
- McDonagh will accept the award in person at a gala premiere of Wild Horse Nine, which is set to world premiere in Venice before screening in Zurich.
- Wild Horse Nine — a black comedy starring John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, and Parker Posey — is set shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup and follows CIA agents stationed on Easter Island.
- Christian Jungen, CEO of the Zurich Film Festival, called McDonagh "one of the most exciting auteur filmmakers of his generation" and singled out Wild Horse Nine as "one of the standout films of the season."
- McDonagh's filmography includes the Academy Award–winning short Six Shooter and the features In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and The Banshees of Inisherin.
- Past A Tribute To … Award recipients include Noah Baumbach, Paolo Sorrentino, Wim Wenders, Michael Haneke, Oliver Stone, and Luca Guadagnino.
- The 22nd Zurich Film Festival runs from September 24 to October 4.
Why it matters: The Tribute To … Award places McDonagh in a lineage of auteur heavyweights — Haneke, Wenders, Sorrentino, Baumbach, Guadagnino — signaling Zurich's formal claim that his dark-comedy career has reached lifetime-achievement stature. The honor is tied directly to Wild Horse Nine, which the festival CEO already calls one of the standout films of the season.
