Glen Basner, founder and chief executive of FilmNation Entertainment, received the Game Changer Award Saturday at the Zurich Summit, the industry conference that runs alongside the Zurich Film Festival. Director Edward Berger, whose Vatican drama “Conclave” Basner executive produced, led an hourlong onstage conversation tracing Basner’s path from a sales rep peddling women’s knitted sweaters to running one of the most prominent independent sales, financing and production companies in the business.
Basner and Berger’s friendship dates back to the early 1990s, when both worked at the New York production company Good Machine. Basner said he got into film almost by accident, spending his spare time helping childhood friend Edward Burns on “The Brothers McMullen” before making the leap from garment sales full-time. He founded FilmNation in 2008, spotting an opening after two of the era’s dominant independent sales outfits, Summit Entertainment and Mandate Pictures, were absorbed by larger distributors.
Since then, FilmNation has backed Sean Baker’s “Anora,” which won five Oscars including best picture, along with “Conclave,” “Arrival,” “Promising Young Woman” and “The Big Sick.” The company has since pushed into television, theater and podcasts, producing Tony-winning stage productions including “Stereophonic” and “The Band’s Visit.”
During the talk, Basner discussed FilmNation’s plans to expand its release slate in 2027 and spoke enthusiastically about upcoming titles, including Peter Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky” and Florian Zeller’s “Bunker.” He said he had personally recruited Zeller for the project, telling the director he was his “filmmaker crush of the moment.” Reflecting on the state of the business, Basner said he began this year with a clarity about the market he had not felt since before the pandemic, adding that 2026 marked the first year in a while without a major economic shock disrupting the industry.
Zurich Film Festival CEO Christian Jungen praised Basner’s ability to pair creative instinct with sales expertise, calling him a driving force behind the growth of the independent sector over nearly two decades. Basner joins previous honorees Tom Quinn of NEON, Pam Abdy of Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Classics co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard. The Zurich Summit continued through the weekend with sessions on the box office rebound, awards season and the growing influence of streaming and social platforms on distribution.
