ZAGREB, 23 June 2022 - The second edition of the Ponta Lopud Film Festival opened on the beach of the Hotel Lafodia on the island of Lopud, off Dubrovnik, on Wednesday evening with the screening of the Coen brothers' film Fargo.

The opening ceremony was attended by four-time American Academy Award winner Joel Coen, who has been making award-winning films with his brother Ethan for four decades.

Mr Coen said it is inspiring to see that the festival is built around a young generation of filmmakers. He will be holding a masterclass workshop for young talent from Croatia and the region and will be joined by four-time Oscar winning actress and producer Frances McDormand.

The festival's co-founder Mirsad Purivatra said that Ponta Lopud is a creative hub and place where people from the film industry meet and inspire each other, and watch and discuss films.

"This is not a competitive festival. This is about creativity, friendship and networking," Purivatra said.

In addition to Coen and McDormand, masterclass workshops will also be held by award-winning film producer Peter Spears, film agent Brian Swardstrom, and director and writer Juho Kuosmanen.

Over the six days, the festival will show eight evening film screenings and seven films in the Franciscan Monastery and the beach of the Hotel Lafodia.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, 6 June 2022 - The international festival of animated film - Animafest Zagreb, which this year marks its 50th anniversary, opened at the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art on Sunday. 

The festival features a rich program, with a number of world premieres, with more than 350 guests from abroad, as well as a presentation of a bilingual monograph dedicated to the 50 years of Animafest and exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The festival will be held at Zagreb's Studentski Centar, Kino SC, Teatar &TD, Tuškanac Cinema, and many other venues. A selection of cartoons will also be shown in Rijeka and Split.

Opening the event, Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomašević said that Animafest was not only a world festival but one of the biggest cultural events in the country.

In his address, Tomašević also recalled his favorite cartoon, Professor Balthazar, a Croatian animated television series for children, created by animator Zlatko Grgić. The series, revolving around benevolent genius Professor Balthazar, was produced at the Zagreb Film studio between 1967 and 1978.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, 27 Feb 2022 - This year's international documentary film festival ZagrebDox will take place from 3 to 10 April and will feature about 80 titles, the organisers announced earlier this week.

The programme includes several films with a focus on children and challenges they face. Among them are Ohad Milstein's "Summer Nights", Zahavi Sanjavi's "Imad's Childhood" and Simon Lereng Wilmont's "A House Made of Splinters".

"Inspired by children’s curiosity and an honest, piercing view of the world in and around them, these creations portray children’s microcosm in a gentle and empathetic way, without shying away from painful and still often taboo topics such as death and grief or burning issues such as growing up in constant uncertainty and restricted freedoms," the organisers said in the announcement of the festival's 18th edition.

The films will be screened at Kaptol Boutique Cinema.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, 28 Nov, 2021 - The Human Rights Film Festival, which focuses on human rights issues and auteur films in general, will be held on 5-12 December in Zagreb's Tuškanac and Kinoteka cinemas, with part of the accompanying programme taking place at the MAMA and KIC cultural centres.

This year's 19th edition will feature new films by some of the world's most important directors, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Céline Sciamma and Sergey Loznitsa.

Admission to all festival screenings is free, and attendees are required to present a valid EU digital COVID certificate, other appropriate proof or a negative test by an authorised institution or laboratory.

For more on lifestyle, follow TCN's dedicated page.

For more about Croatia, CLICK HERE.

September 28, 2021 - The Zagreb Subversive Festival 2021 will present movies and discussions on alternative, progressive solutions to burning global issues throughout October.

After the iconic Kino Europa (Europa Cinema) in Zagreb's centre closed down (despite huge support for it to remain, as well as protests), many cultural festivals that called the venue their home weren't sure where they would continue their cultural programmes.

However, many programmes successfully moved on, and the Zagreb Subversive Festival is no exception. The 14th edition of this progressive culture event is making a return to Zagreb and will last from October 3-23.

The Tuškanac Cinema, the Cultural Informative Centre (KIC), the Prosvjeta Serbian Cultural Centre (SKD Prosvjeta), and the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography joined forces to host the programme. Additionally, the online Volimdokumentarce.net (Ilovedocumentaries.net) programme will live stream online for those unable to attend the events in person.

''The Zagreb Subversive Festival 2021 is a multi-disciplinary platform inside which political theory and film join forces to shake up the status quo, identify the aesthetic of resistance and nurture a more radical approach to film, theory, and practice. We're interested in the potential transformation of our neoliberal daily lives, and the role art and culture could play in this endeavour,'' writes the official website of the Subversive Film Festival.

The festival began back in 2008, marking the 40th anniversary of 1968 global protests, and since then, it has evolved into one of the most important progressive festivals in the region. The festival is split into two sections: The Subversive Film Festival and the Subversive Forum.

The film part showcases movies that deal with topics of social injustice, social change, women's and minority rights, LGBTQ+, student and workers' issues and movements, as well as post-colonial heritage. The screenings also have a competitive nature due to the ''Wild Dreamer'' Award for the best feature, documentary, and short film categories.

The Subversive Forum portion of the festival holds conferences that present ''tools for the deconstruction of the offered normalised story about the world'', as well as the articulation of a possible alternative reality and its foundation.

Noted international movie directors, philosophers, social scientists, and activists such as Oliver Stone, Toni Negri, Slavoj Žižek, Michael Hardt, and many others have attended and participated in the Zagreb Subversive Festival over the years.

The 14th edition has a central topic, ''A Post-COVID Democracy: The Ethics of Fight and Solidarity Poetics'' and thirty movie titles are confirmed for the programme, which will be filled with exhibitions, lectures, and discussions that will stretch throughout the month of October.

Learn more about Zagreb in our TC guide. 

For more about culture in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 29 Aug, 2021 - The 17th edition of the International Experimental Film and Video Festival 25FPS will take place in Zagreb on 23-26 September.

The 2021 Competition Programme features 27 innovative films from different parts of the world, including three from Croatia.

The topics the authors of this year's selection dealt with include the impact of different social crises and turmoil on our personal identities and relations with others.

This year, the Grand Jury consists of Australian director Pia Bord, German curator Katrin Mundt and Croatian multimedia artist Ivan Marušić Klif.

Each of them will award a Grand Prix, and the films are also competing for the Critics' Jury Award and the Audience Award. Croatian films are also competing for the Green DCP Award, handed out by the 25 FPS Association for Audio-Visual Research.

Admission to all screenings and festival programmes is free.

For more on lifestyle, follow TCN's dedicated page.

For more about Croatia, CLICK HERE.

July 3, 2021 - In sixty seconds, participants had to visually express why the county or the place where they live has grown close to their hearts. After reviewing all 21 videos, the jury decided on the Vukovar-Srijem team, led by director Saul Tikvić, as the winners.

Vinkovci's Saul Tikvić is the winner of the final of the Moja.hr project, a competition for the best one-minute film about the county or place where the author lives, reports Turističke priče. It is a project of Večernji list in which the Croatian Radio and Television was a partner, and it was supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Croatian Tourist Board. The young team, which included Davorin Kresic, Dunja Šaran, and Dario Hegeduš, along with Tikvić as the host, made a winning film about Vukovar-Srijem County. The award was presented to them at a ceremony held on Thursday night by the Minister of Tourism and Sports Nikolina Brnjac.

''We did not expect the award, because the competition was really high quality. After announcing third and second place we thought we had no chance of being first, but then came a surprise for all of us on the team. We couldn't believe how we shot the best video in the country'', Tikvić shared his impressions from the awards ceremony.

According to the director of the Vukovar-Srijem County Tourist Board, Rujana Bušić Srpak, the beautiful images of Vukovar-Srijem County, together with the music and narrative of Dunja Šuran, who appears in the video, send a correct and positive image, and the experience of young people living here give extra importance to the whole project.

''We made our first contact with Saul Tikvić last year when we organized a photo workshop, in which he also participated. For the Moja.hr project, we formed a team that worked completely on a voluntary basis, and we as the tourist board were the coordinators, that is, we helped and gave support to these young people. Ultimately, the film is entirely their own work, because we didn’t want to interfere with the script. This success is an excellent promotion for our county, which will host the awards ceremony next year, which will further promote Vukovar-Srijem County'', said Srpak.

The Moja.hr project aims to encourage young people to show the beauty, creativity, and emotion of the county in which they live. In sixty seconds, the authors had to say why the county or the place where they live has grown close to their hearts, why they love living there, and express their personality and creativity in these answers. After reviewing all 21 videos, the jury decided on the Vukovar-Srijem team as the winners.

''The shooting of the film lasted about a month at locations throughout the Vukovar-Srijem County. We changed the script several times, but in the end, we were satisfied with what we did. The award means a lot to me because I decided to dedicate myself completely to photography, filming, and editing. Namely, a few hours before receiving the award, I resigned from my job, because photos and videos are my love, to which I want to dedicate more time, and I intend to do videos and commercials. The award will certainly help me achieve that goal'', director Saul Tikvić points out.

For winning first place, Tikvić was awarded a cash prize in the amount of HRK 15,000, a tablet, and an annual e-subscription to Večernji list. The money will be shared with the whole team, and one part, as required by the rules in Slavonia, will be spent on a celebration, or a party with friends.

''In Vinkovci, where we came from Slovakia, I have been alone since I was five years old and it is a city that I love and that I would never leave. I worked for a few months in Sweden, it can be well earned, but it’s not the life for me. I returned to Vinkovci where I feel much better and I would never leave them again'', said Tikvic, who announced that in a few days the Tourist Board of Vinkovci will publish a video of the Roman Days in Vinkovci, where he worked with Davorin Krešić.

In the end, the second prize of the Moja.hr project went to the team from Medulin consisting of Darko Privrat, Mateo Ostojić, and Hugo Vojak, and the third to Timon Terzić, Bojan Horvat, and Dario Mikulek from Varaždin.

For everything you need to know about filming in Croatia, in your language, be sure to check Total Croatia's page.

For more made in Croatia news, follow TCN's dedicated page.

June 16th, 2021 - The 2021 Motovun Film Festival is located in the heart of the land of truffles. The Motovun Forest is a famous site of precious truffles, and their taste and smell are often the reason that takes travelers to the valley of the Mirna river. That is why this year's festival (July 27-31) begins with the celebrated documentary "Truffle Hunters", which won the hearts of the film world last season.

Fahion.hr reports that the film created by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw premiered at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival and told the story of a group of experienced experts from Piedmont, Italy, seekers of rare and precious truffles longed for by the world's richest chefs and gourmets. While a rich and fashionable culinary world is being taken for their prey, they live the lives of humble individuals, in love with their sniffer dogs, cunningly and silently protecting their world from greed.

Istrian truffle growers will also have the opportunity to tell their stories. In cooperation with their association, Truffle Day will be organized on the festival's first day with socializing and accompanying delicacies from this sought-after tuber.

The opening film is just the beginning of Italian stories because this year's Motovun program also includes three Italian premieres with excellent reviews at prestigious festivals. The winner of the award for the best screenplay is coming from the Venice Film Festival. Predators by director Pietro Castellitt is a black humor story about two seemingly incompatible families. Some are bourgeois intellectuals and others, proletarian fascists. A radical act will lead them to a showdown that reveals that no one is what they seem, but we are all predators in the end.

The film Padrenostro is set in the lead 70s and is based on a real childhood event by director Claudio Noce. After being wounded in a terrorist attack, the hitherto untouchable police chief becomes vulnerable and insecure, and his son seeks solace in a life-changing friendship. Lead actor Pierfrancesco Favino was awarded in Venice for the best role.

With special recognition from the Federation of Italian Cinema Clubs from Venice comes the film Assandiro by the popular Sardinian director Salvatore Mereu. This is another topic that is current for us: the impact of the modern tourism industry on traditional communities and the life changes. The protagonist is a traditional Italian peasant, and his son and daughter-in-law return from Berlin with the idea of ​​turning his estate into a lucrative tourist complex. After that decision, their lives will no longer be the same.

These film treats are brought by the Motovun Film Festival in cooperation with the Italian Institute of Culture. In addition to the main competition program, which will present eighteen premiere titles, Italian authors will be represented in the children's program Buzz @ teen, which takes place in Buzet (July 22-25), as well as in the short program, the winner of which will compete this year. For the European Film Academy Award.

The full festival program will be announced on July 1, when ticket pre-sale begins!

For more on lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

To get to know Motovun better, click HERE. 

April 4, 2021- The first joint film festival featuring films chosen by festival selectors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia will take place online from 9 to 17 April via an online platform as part of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region.

It will be the first time for the four leading film festivals from the same linguistic region - the Sarajevo Film Festival (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Zagreb Film Festival (Croatia), Herceg Novi Film Festival (Montenegro), and Auteur Film Festival (Serbia) - to get together. The Sarajevo Film Festival initiated the project.

“Festivals are meeting points, places to get together and share. They are places where we can decide about our future direction together and show that we are all part of the same community – a single film community," representatives of the four festivals said in a joint statement.

The first edition of the regional film festival will feature films that can rarely be seen, including Yugoslav classics, directorial debuts, award-winning films, and the most attractive European and world titles. The audience will also have a chance to see interviews with some of the filmmakers.

The Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region is supported by the European Union's Creative Europe program.

To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow our dedicated page.

The 2019 Human Rights Film Festival, which is among the most anticipated film festivals in Zagreb, Croatia, begins this evening Sunday, December 1st. While this festival is bereft of glamour, red carpets or big festival hype; HRFF offers a carefully curated selection of the most noteworthy art films from recent world festivals. Here are our top 10 recommended films, all with English subtitles. They are organized by date and time, from today December 1, 2019 through next Sunday. Links to additional information and film trailers are included.

Admission is free and tickets are available at Kino tuškanac 1 hour before the film showing or 18-19h on each day of the festival (01.12 - 08.12).

Honeyland (UPDATE: No more tickets for Sunday 01.12. Another showing Monday 02.12 at 17:00)
(Medena zemlja)
Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov • North Macedonia • 2019 • 87′
Sunday 01.12. • 19:00 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

Situated in an isolated mountainous region deep within the Balkans, Hatidze Muratova lives with her ailing mother in a village without roads, electricity or running water. She’s the last in a long line of Macedonian wild beekeepers, making a living farming honey in small batches to sell in the closest city, a mere four hours’ walk away. Hatidze’s peaceful existence is thrown into upheaval upon the arrival of an itinerant family, along with their roaring engines, seven rambunctious children and herd of cattle. Hatidze optimistically meets the promise of change with an open heart, offering her hospitality, brandy and beekeeping advice. This fascinating documentary had its world premiere at the Sundance Festival, where it received the award for Best International Documentary.

Just Don't Think I'll Scream
(Samo nemojte pomisliti da vrištim)
Frank Beauvais • France • 2019 • 75’
Monday 02.12. • 21:30 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

After his relationship ended in 2016, 45-year-old Frank Beauvais found himself all alone in a small village near France's eastern border with no job and no prospects. Lost within himself and intimidated by the world around him, he found solace in the screen, watching four to five films a day. It was here that he began to work on an audio-visual diary, which he put together by editing shots of the movies he devoured.

He then combines a cinematic collage from these films with his intimate diary, in which he incidentally responds to current events in France (a series of terrorist attacks), vividly illustrating the state of general crisis, intimate and social.

The Trial of Ratko Mladić
(Suđenje Ratku Mladiću)
Henry Singer, Rob Miller • UK, Norway • 2018 • 99’
Tuesday 03.12. • 17:00 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

Twenty-five years ago, Europe was shocked by appalling images of the concentration camps and mass graves in former Yugoslavia. The Bosnian War cost the lives of around 100,000 innocent people. In 2012, almost exactly 20 years after that bloody conflict started, the trial of the Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladić began at the Yugoslavia tribunal in The Hague. The crimes he was accused of included leading the siege of Sarajevo and murdering 7,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica.

Filmmakers Rob Miller and Henry Singer shed light on the war from two perspectives. Not only do they speak to public prosecutors and visit victims and witnesses; they also interview Mladić’s lawyers, supporters and family members, who consider him a patriotic hero. In addition to telling the stories of victims and witnesses, the film raises questions about the international tribunal itself—and whether it’s possible to achieve justice by a five-year trial. It won’t bring back the dead and the accused refused to accept the verdict. Shocking, potent images from archive news footage remind us of the absurd and gratuitous cruelty of this dirty war, whose battles are still not finished. 

Present.Perfect
(Present.Perfect)
Shengze Zhu • USA, Hong Kong • 2019 • 124′
Wednesday 04.12. • 16:30 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

The Chinese documentary 'Present.Perfect', which won the award for Best Picture at the esteemed Rotterdam Film Festival, is made up of often-incredible live streaming footage collected by Shengze Zhu over nine months. The film offers us a fascinating insight into contemporary Chinese society through a series of eccentric characters, mostly marginal people, who have an online presence which is often their only form of communication with others. The phenomenon of online streaming everything from the most boring everyday jobs to pure exhibitionism has garnered so much momentum that censors in China intervened.

Cold Case Hammarskjöld
(Zaboravljeni slučaj Hammarskjöld)
Mads Brügger • Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium • 2019 • 128′
Thursday 05.12. • 19:00 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

The new film by Danish director Mads Brugger ('The Ambassador') is sure to be a crowd pleaser within this year's HRFF program. The film has already been screened at the Rab Film Festival, and is an exciting, shocking and entertaining documentary which addresses colonialism and racism in Africa. He addresses these topics through an investigation into the case of the death of United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in a mysterious plane crash in 1961. While investigating the conspiracy, which led to the sudden death of an influential politician and diplomat, and freedom fighter for African countries, the director reveals an even more horrific narrative, which changed history.

State Funeral
(Državni pogreb)
Sergej Loznica • Netherlands, Latvia • 2019 • 135’
Friday 06.12. • 16:30 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

Sergei Loznica, a highly awarded Ukrainian documentary filmmaker, dissects the personality cult phenomenon in a new film by combining archival footage of Stalin's five-day funeral ceremony. The fascinating color shots are a testimony of a specific time in history, and Loznica's ironic commentary accompanies the tears, flowers, warm words and expressions of respect which hide millions of dead, subjugated and starved to death. The footage of this magnificent ritual also served as an unequivocal critique of Vladimir Putin, another personality cult that has been taking shape in Russia for years.

Vitalina Varela
(Vitalina Varela)
Pedro Costa • Portugal • 2019 • 124’
Friday 06.12. • 19:00 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

Portuguese director Pedro Costa’s new film 'Vitalina Varela' premiered at the Locarno Festival, where he won the Golden Leopard for Best Picture and the Best Actress Award. Costa's film has brilliant visuals, but it’s style and form require a patient viewer. Vitalina Varela is a middle-aged widow from Cape Verde who, after her husband's death, goes to the Lisbon slum where he lived for years. Vitalina is Costa's muse, which he introduced in his 2014 movie 'A Horse Called Money'.

End of the Century
(Kraj stoljeća)
Lucio Castro • Argentina • 2019 • 83′
Friday 06.12. • 21:30 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

Few films have captured the fleeting and enduring nature of an intimate connection as poignantly as “End of the Century.” The elegant film, which revolves around two men who meet on a Barcelona balcony, has a lingering emotional effect. “End of the Century” gives voice to a seemingly indescribable feeling, one that anyone who’s ever fallen in love will recognize. Written and directed by Argentinian filmmaker Lucio Castro in his feature debut, “End of the Century” follows lush romances like “Weekend” and “Call Me by Your Name,” and will certainly endure as one of the most evocative gay films of the decade.

Heimat is a Space in Time
(Heimat je prostor od vremena)
Thomas Heise • Germany, Austria • 2019 • 218′
Sunday 08.12. • 15:00 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

This acclaimed documentary, by the great German filmmaker Thomas Heise, was awarded Best Film in the Forum at the Berlin Festival. This is historical essay offers insight into 100 years of German history through the prism of the author's complex genealogy. Beginning with World War I, through Nazi rule, and living in East Germany until the fall of the Berlin Wall; Heise shares her rich family heritage and questions her beliefs on homeland and identity.

The Painted Bird
(Obojena ptica)
Václav Marhoul • Czechia, Ukraine, Slovakia • 2019 • 170′
Sunday 08.12. • 20:00 • kino Tuškanac • Zagreb

The Czech film 'The Painted Bird' by director Václav Marhúl, based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski, is arguably the most controversial film of the year. The film starring Stellan Skarsgård, Harvey Keitel and Udo Kier, is spoken in a fictitious pan-Slavic language. Because of the brutal portrayals of violence, the film shocked audiences at the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered. The story follows a Jewish boy who wandered the expanses of Eastern Europe during World War II, fleeing anti-Semitic persecution and witnessing the unprecedented cruelty of war. The film is a 'wild three-hour journey through hell' but is magnificently directed and shot with an impressive black and white camera. The film was selected as a Czech representative for the Oscars.

To stay updated on film festivals and cultural events in Croatia, follow our Lifestyle page here. Updates on film showings can be found on the HRFF Facebook page here. More info on Kino tuškanac can be accessed here.