Zurich Film Festival Unveils 12 Gala Premieres, From Florian Zeller's "Bunker" to Danny Boyle's "Ink"
The Zurich Film Festival has added twelve films to its Gala Premieres section, bringing a star-heavy lineup of world and European premieres to its 22nd edition, running 24 September through 4 October 2026.
Leading the new additions is Bunker, a France-Spain thriller from Florian Zeller, the playwright-turned-filmmaker behind The Father. Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz star alongside Stephen Graham, Paul Dano and Patrick Schwarzenegger in the story of an architect offered the chance to secretly design a survival bunker for a billionaire convinced the end of the world is near. It is the kind of high-concept, prestige-cast package that festivals build a red carpet around.
Danny Boyle's Ink also joins the Gala section. The U.K.-France-U.S. drama stars Jack O'Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, giving the festival a filmmaker whose name alone fills seats. Boyle's presence signals Zurich's ambition to sit alongside Toronto and San Sebastián as an autumn destination for awards-season titles — the window when studios and sales agents begin positioning films for the year-end conversation.
The lineup reaches wide beyond those two. Lauren Miller Rogen's Babies, a U.S. comedy starring Anna Kendrick and Seth Rogen alongside Issa Rae, Dan Stevens, Ed Helms, Sharon Stone and David Strathairn, will have its European premiere in the section. Jordan Firstman's Club Kid, a U.S. comedy-drama with LGBTQIA+ themes starring Firstman himself, Cara Delevingne and Diego Calva, also joins the bill.
Two world premieres land in the section as well. Frauke Finsterwalder's Eurotrash and Blood Money, starring Albanian rapper Noizy and Moritz Bleibtreu, will both unspool for the first time in Zurich.
Noah Segan's The Only Living Pickpocket in New York brings a crime-thriller pedigree with John Turturro and Steve Buscemi heading a cast that also includes Giancarlo Esposito and Tatiana Maslany. And Ali Asgari's A Bit of Light, a multilateral co-production spanning Iran, Switzerland, Italy, Canada and Turkey, rounds out the announced titles with an art-house international flavour.
These twelve join a Gala section that had already notched one attention-grabbing booking: I Play Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone and Channing Tatum, was set for a Zurich gala following its Toronto premiere earlier in September, according to Deadline and FilmNation.
Festival director Reta Guetg's team has positioned the Gala Premieres section as a curated bridge between the autumn heavyweight festivals — the films that pass through Toronto on their way to broader release, and the world premieres that start their journey on Swiss soil. The full program for the 22nd edition is scheduled to be published on 9 September, according to Variety.
For audiences and industry alike, that 9 September reveal will fill in the remaining slots — competition titles, documentary sections, and the masterclass guests who make Zurich a late-September fixture on the European festival circuit.
