The Rebirth of Roman Polanski

6:00 AM PDT 9/20/2011 by Scott Roxborough

Two years after his arrest, the fugitive director returns to the Zurich Film Festival on a career rebound.

Around this time in 2009, an unsuspecting Roman Polanski flew to the Zurich Film Festival to receive a lifetime achievement award. He didn't get farther than the airport. Swiss police arrested him on a U.S. warrant from 1978, when Polanski fled the country after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. What followed was months of house arrest, a long extradition battle and a media circus. It ended, as it began, with Polanski a free man.