FilmNation chief Glen Basner takes Game Changer honour in Zurich
Glen Basner, founder and chief executive of FilmNation Entertainment, has received the Game Changer Award at the Zurich Summit, Deadline. The honour came with an hour-long onstage conversation led by German Oscar-winning director Edward Berger. It put a dealmaker centre stage at a festival more often focused on directors and stars.
The Zurich Summit is an annual industry gathering held inside the Zurich Film Festival to build links between European and American film businesses, Deadline. This year's edition ran from 25 to 27 September in Switzerland. The Game Changer session was listed as the closing event of the Saturday conference, Deadline.
Berger did more than hand over the prize. He interviewed Basner on stage as part of the honour, Deadline. The pairing has history. The two first met in the early 1990s at Good Machine, the New York production company. More than three decades later they worked together on Berger's 2024 film Conclave.
In Zurich they looked back on that collaboration during the conversation, Yahoo. Berger presented the award to Basner, Variety. Think of it as the director honouring the executive who helped finance the film and move it around the world.
Basner built his career in film sales. That is the business of selling a film's right to be shown, territory by territory, to local distributors. Before starting his own company he headed sales at Focus and then at The Weinstein Company, Deadline. He created FilmNation in 2008 as a sales company before growing it into a production and financing operation.
He was not the only familiar name on the programme. Edward Berger, producer Robbie Brenner and producer Oliver Berben were announced as speakers alongside honouree Basner, Deadline. Past recipients of the Game Changer Award include NEON chief executive Tom Quinn. Basner knows the format well. He was previously lined up to interview a former honouree, CAA agent Roeg Sutherland.
What makes this stand out is the choice of guest. Sales executives rarely get the big-room treatment. They do the quiet maths of festivals and markets. Zurich gave that work a public bow, and pointed to more to come, with FilmNation planning to expand its slate in 2027, Variety.
