Karl Spoerri
Production
Biography
Karl Spoerri co-founded the Zurich Film Festival in 2005. As artistic director of the festival, he led it to become the largest fall festival in the German-speaking world with over 130,000 visitors and 160 films screened each year. Spoerri is also the founder of the Zurich Summit, the most important industry event of the Zurich Film Festival. In 2014, he initiated the film magazine "Frame" in collaboration with NZZ am Sonntag. Spoerri and his business partners sold the festival and the associated marketing company Spoundation Motion Picture AG, the current owner of the "Frame" cinema in Zurich, to NZZ Mediengruppe AG, and he resigned from his position as artistic director of the ZFF in 2019. In his further career as a producer and executive producer, Spoerri worked on David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method with Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender. With Zurich Avenue, Spoerri was executive producer on films such as Julian Schnabel's At Eternity's Gate with Willem Dafoe, David Lowery's The Old Man & the Gun with Robert Redford and Casey Affleck, Harmony Korine's The Beach Bum with Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg and Isla Fisher, and Roland Emmerich's Moonfall. As a producer, he brought Bill Pohlad's Dreamin' Wild with Casey Affleck, Zooey Deschanel and Beau Bridges to the big screen. The film celebrated its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival 2022 and was released by Roadside Attractions in the USA in summer 2023. Zurich Avenue also co-developed the acclaimed Netflix production Nyad starring Jodie Foster and Annette Bening together with Black Bear Pictures. Nyad celebrated its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and screened at all the fall festivals before the film was successfully launched on Netflix. Karl Spoerri co-developed Monsanto, a highly anticipated film starring Glen Powell, Anthony Mackie, and Laura Dern, directed by John Lee Hancock. The project generated significant buzz at the 2024 Cannes Market, leading to an impressive pre-sale deal with Netflix for worldwide distribution. The streaming platform secured the rights for over $30 million, making it one of the largest deals at Cannes that year. Spoerri also produced the action comedy Thelma with June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey and Clark Gregg. Thelma had its World premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it received exceptional critical acclaim. With a 98% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes based on over 190 reviews, the film resonated strongly with both audiences and critics alike. Following its successful festival debut, Thelma was released in the U.S. by Magnolia Pictures over the summer of 2024, where it quickly became an independent box office sensation, grossing over $10 million. Thelma was successfully released internationally by Universal Pictures, rolling out in key territories such as the UK, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Finland, and Japan. The film resonated with audiences worldwide, cementing its success across multiple markets. In spring 2025, Spoerri was involved in the feature film Switzerland, a psychological thriller starring Helen Mirren and Alden Ehrenreich, directed by Anton Corbijn. The film is currently in postproduction.
Known For
Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss, crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.
Scene of the Crime
No description available.
G&G – Gesichter und Geschichten
A mysterious force knocks the moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it.
Moonfall
When 93-year-old Thelma Post gets duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson, she sets out on a treacherous quest across the city to reclaim what was taken from her.
Thelma
Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein as his patient. Jung’s weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud. Both men fall under Sabina’s spell.
A Dangerous Method
Famed but tormented artist Vincent van Gogh spends his final years in Arles, France, painting masterworks of the natural world that surrounds him.
At Eternity's Gate
An irreverent comedy about the misadventures of Moondog, a rebellious stoner and lovable rogue who lives large.
The Beach Bum
The true story of Forrest Tucker, from his audacious escape from San Quentin at the age of 70 to an unprecedented string of heists that confounded authorities and enchanted the public. Wrapped up in the pursuit are a detective, who becomes captivated with Forrest’s commitment to his craft, and a woman, who loves him in spite of his chosen profession.
The Old Man & the Gun
The true story of the Emerson family and the tumult that followed the success of their self-recorded pop-funk album of the same name, which went largely unnoticed until critics rediscovered and reappraised it decades later. Now, as an adult, Donnie is forced to confront the ghosts from the past and grapple with the emotional toll his dreams have taken on the family who supported him.
Dreamin' Wild
Patricia Highsmith’s late life solitude in the Swiss Alps is interrupted by Edward, a young literary agent sent by the writer’s relentless publishing company to convince her to pen one last novel in her wildly popular Ripley series. Highsmith uses her famously macabre imagination to scare Edward away, but before they know it, a collaboration ensues, leaving the world they’ve constructed indistinguishable from their own.
Switzerland
Based on the Take That musical, five best friends have the night of their lives seeing their favourite boy band in concert. Twenty-five years later, their lives have changed in many different ways as they reunite for one more epic show by their beloved band, to relight their friendship and discover that maybe their greatest days are ahead of them.
Greatest Days
The story of some young people who grew up in a working-class area in Zurich in the late 1950s. The plain living style of their educators is not on their wavelength. They find the occurrences in the newly opened Jazz club much more tempting. Down there is what must not be up there: spontaneous lust for life. Jazz electrifies them all. And then there are the girls ...