As the 16th Zurich Film Festival begins on Thursday, the festival authority announced that it will honour Academy-award winning actor Olivia Colman with the Golden Eye Award, the lifetime achievement honour at the festival.
Colman is known for her stirring performance as Queen Elizabeth II in the third season of Netflix drama series, The Crown. She won the Oscar for her role as the naive and despaired Queen Anne of England in Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2018 film The Favourite.
She first collaborated with Lanthimos in his idiosyncratic dystopian feature The Lobster. Colman’s new film The Father, directed by Florian Zeller makes its festival debut at Zurich. In Zeller’s directorial, Colman stars as the daughter of Anthony Hopkins, an aging father suffering from dementia.
Colman will connect virtually to the premiere of her film on Saturday. In her statement, the actor expressed regret over her inability to attend the ceremony in person due to the pandemic conditions.
Previous honorary winners of the Award include Jake Gyllenhaal, John Malkovich and Helen Hunt.
“Olivia Colman is one of the most exciting character actresses of her generation, she is characterized by great diversity and gives her characters depth”, says Christian Junge, Artistic Director of Zurich film festival in the official announcement.