Three ZHdK Nominations for the FIRST STEPS Awards
The nominees are Patricia Schütz for her series screenplay Operation Oberland, Hae-Sup Sin for the short film Ban Dal, and actress Georgia Rushton for her performance in Beth Barnes’s ZHdK Bachelor’s diploma film Eggshells.
Three projects from the Film programme at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) have been nominated for this year’s FIRST STEPS Awards. The nominees are Patricia Schütz’s series screenplay Operation Oberland, Hae-Sup Sin’s short film Ban Dal, and actress Georgia Rushton for her performance in Beth Barnes’s Bachelor’s diploma film Eggshells.
The FIRST STEPS Awards are the most prestigious and, with a total prize fund of €132,000, the most highly endowed awards for graduation films from film and art schools in German-speaking countries. Five distinguished expert juries selected the nominees in ten categories from a total of 159 submissions.
«Operation Oberland» nominated for the Big Audience Award
Patricia Schütz’s series screenplay Operation Oberland has been nominated in the Big Audience Award category. With the nomination, Schütz receives a €1,000 nomination prize and has the chance to win an additional €7,000 in prize money as well as the FIRST STEPS Big Audience Award.
Operation Oberland is a dramedy series about Cosima, a medical student from Zurich who ends up at a rural hospital in the Bernese Oberland instead of Berlin’s Charité. She quickly tells her circle of friends that she is still in Berlin—and increasingly becomes entangled in a web of lies.
Patricia Schütz completed her Master’s degree in Screenwriting at ZHdK in summer 2026. Before that, she studied Film Studies and French in Berlin, Paris and Zurich. Her passion for creative writing eventually led her to screenwriting. Today, she develops series and film projects and works in writers’ rooms.
«Ban Dal»: Nomination in the Short Film category
Hae-Sup Sin, a ZHdK alumnus of the Master’s programme in Fiction Directing, has been nominated in the Short Filmcategory with his graduation film Ban Dal.
The film tells the story of Annette, a Swiss woman who accompanies her adopted son to South Korea to meet his biological mother. The reunion confronts both mothers with unspoken feelings, old wounds and the question of what it truly means to be a mother.
Ban Dal has already attracted international attention. The film screened at the Palm Springs International ShortFest, where it received the Best Student Film award, as well as at the renowned Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. There, Hae-Sup Sin participated in the EFP Future Frames programme of European Film Promotion. As part of Future Frames, he was awarded the Allwyn Residency.
Trailer for Ban Dal: YouTube
Georgia Rushton nominated for the Götz George Newcomer Award
Georgia Rushton has been nominated for the Götz George Newcomer Award for her performance in the film EGGSHELLS. The nominees also receive a €1,000 nomination prize and have the chance to win €10,000 in prize money and the FIRST STEPS Award.
Eggshells is the Bachelor’s diploma film by Beth Barnes, a ZHdK alumna. The short film celebrated its world premiere at the renowned PÖFF Shorts Festival in Tallinn and won the Special Emerging Talent Award at the Festival International de Films de Fribourg.
Trailer for Eggshells: YouTube
