Icelandic composer and Oscar winner Hildur Guðnadóttir will receive the Career Achievement Award at the 21st Zurich Film Festival (ZFF). The award will be presented to her on October 2, 2025, during the «Cinema in Concert» gala at the Tonhalle Zürich. Guðnadóttir will preside over the jury of the 13th International Film Music Competition (IFMC) and will also take part in a ZFF Masters session. She is best known for her compositions for films such as JOKER, A HAUNTING IN VENICE, TÁR, the video game BATTLEFIELD 2042 and the TV series CHERNOBYL.
The Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) annually awards honorary prizes to significant filmmakers whose work have shaped and enriched the film landscape. This year, the ZFF (25.9.-5.10.) honors the career of Hildur Guðnadóttir with the Career Achievement Award.
«Hildur Guðnadóttir is one of the most innovative composers of our time. She knows how to use experimental sounds to shape mainstream pop culture and lend it atmospheric depth. She is an inquisitive musician who develops her scores in dialog with the filmmakers and their sequences, creating melodies that you might not hum to yourself on the way home, but which resonate deep within us and thus shape our experience of films such as JOKER or TÁR. Her unmistakable style makes her a groundbreaking artist and a role model for many young talents worldwide. It is a special pleasure and honor for us to be able to award her work», says festival director Christian Jungen.
Hildur Guðnadóttir is delighted to come to Zurich for the 21st ZFF: «Thank you so much Zurich Film Festival for this lovely acknowledgment! I am very excited to head over your way to listen to the beautiful Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and of course to get to see some of the great films and music at your festival! Thank you!»
Pioneer of film composition and musical talent of the present
Hildur Gudnadóttir is an award-winning Icelandic composer and cellist, who has earned a unique place on the contemporary music scene thanks to her virtuosity, versatility and originality. She has won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, two Grammys and a BAFTA. Her groundbreaking score for the HBO series CHERNOBYL won her an Emmy and led to her being named «Television Composer of the Year» at the World Soundtrack Awards. For the soundtrack to the film JOKER, she became the first solo composer to win a Golden Globe for Best Original Score and went on to win an Academy Award and a Grammy. Her work includes numerous film and television projects such as SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO, MARY MAGDALENE, WOMEN TALKING, JOKER: FOLIE Á DEUX and TÁR.
In addition to her film music, Hildur Guðnadóttir has released four solo albums and composed music for theater and dance performances. She has collaborated with renowned institutions such as the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, the British Film Institute and the Royal Swedish Opera. Guðnadóttir was born in Reykjavík in 1982 and grew up in a musical family. She began playing the cello at the age of five and studied at the Reykjavík Music Academy and the Berlin University of the Arts. She currently lives in Berlin and is collaborating with director NiaDaCosta on the films HEDDA and 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE.
Hildur Guðnadóttir at the IFMC
The Zurich Film Festival and the Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zürich, in collaboration with the Forum Filmmusik, will hold the International Film Music Competition for the 13th time this year. The task is to score the seven-minute short film WILD LOVE by Paul Autric, Quentin Camus, Léa Georges, Maryka Laudet, Zoé Sottiaux and Corentin Yvergniaux for a symphony orchestra.
The international jury will select three compositions from the submissions, which will be premiered by the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich under the direction of Frank Strobel in the presence of the three nominees at the «Cinema in Concert» gala at the Tonhalle Zürich on October 2, 2025. «Looking to the future with the International Film Music Competition and giving young composers a stage is essential for their development and for us as an institution», says Marc Barwisch, Head of Artistic Operations at the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich.
The jury, chaired by Hildur Guðnadóttir, will select the winning composition on the same evening and award the Golden Eye for «Best International Film Music 2025», endowed with CHF 10,000. Tickets for the event can be purchased here.
The expert jury of the 13th IFMC consists of:
Hildur Guðnadóttir (composer & musician, Iceland, jury president)
Frank Strobel (conductor & Musician, Germany)
Balz Bachmann (composer & musician, Switzerland)
Special thanks go to the Else v. Sick Foundation and the Freundeskreis Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich as well as the Fondation SUISA, SWISSPERFORM and the Stiftung Phonoproduzierende.
