COLOGNE, Germany – Roman Polanski is returning to Zurich and the Zurich Film Festival two years after his arrest there on sexual assault charges made headlines around the world.
The Oscar-winning director will fly to Zurich Sept. 27 to receive the lifetime achievement award the festival intended to give him in 2009. At the time, Swiss police were waiting for Polanski at the airport and arrested him. He spent months under house arrest while the Swiss courts debated whether to extradite him to the United States to face decades old charges of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. In the end, the courts set him free. Because of that precedent, Polanski is under no danger of a repeat performance in Zurich this time around.
Polanski has made it clear he will not give any interviews in Zurich and the festival organizers have refused to comment on his case.
After the tribute ceremony to Polanski, the Zurich festival will screen the world premiere of an undisclosed non-fiction feature. The title of the film will not be revealed until the day of the screening. Polanski’s latest film, Carnage, starring Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly, premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.
