March 28, 2022 - The Oscars were celebrated on Sunday night with Croatian wine in Hollywood!

Celebrating the art of filmmaking is supposed to be the key topic of Hollywood's biggest night – the Oscars. While there are a few controversies about this one, no such thing was an issue at Jonathan Baker’s “Oscar is Women” themed viewing party, taking place at the former residence of Warren Beaty.  And guess what? Croatia played a key role.

Hollywood’s Entertainment Industry Is Into Croatian Wines

Can you imagine an entertainment party without libations? Of course, not. Croatian wines Pošip and Babić were served to the attendees as they got settled to watch the Oscar night.  

“The word got around about the quality wines and the line was long to get to them,” said Ms. Iva Bahunek Modrič, CEO of the Croatian Tourism Board office in Los Angeles, who attended the party with Mr. Larry Namer, the owner of the Entertainment Channel.  Mr. Namer has traveled to Croatia and loves the country and its gourmet and wine scene, and this evening he got the bragging rights about the Croatian wines which he has already experienced in Croatia.

Indigenous Croatian wines – a Pošip from the Terra Madre Winery, Komarna Appellation, and a The Dalmatian Dog Babić from the Testament Winery, Šibenik was served to the attendees together with a California Napa Merlot.  

“Pošip and Babić are easy to sip and everyone appreciates their structured, yet soft Mediterranean flavors,” added Ms. Modric of Croatian Tourism Board.  “Sipping Croatian wine in a foreign country, envokes the scents of Adriatic which transfer people to Croatia. We are excited that Americans are starting to value the indigenous Croatian wines even in the middle of California, which clearly has many wines to be proud of.”

The Jonathan Baker party at his Baker Manor was dubbed the “Oscar is a Woman” party where Jonathan shot a video with Variety Magazine about the concept behind Oscar being a woman. We are sure this brought up a great conversation at the viewing party.  But, most importantly for the Croatian community in the US – it was clear to the attendees, which were on Hollywood's whos who list, that Croatian winemaking can stand up to the best of California.

These two wines, Pošip and Babić, represent more than 70 indigenous Croatian wines currently available in the US and shipped to most US states. 

For more information about Croatia and the Croatian wines in the US, visit www.Visit-Croatia.org and www.CroatianPremiumWine.com. 

For more information on this Hollywood event and other happenings with the Croatian wines, visit @CroatianPremiumWine on Facebook and IG. 

Živjeli!

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February 22, 2022 - The 18th edition of the ZagrebDox International Documentary Film Festival will take place from 3 to 10 April at the Kaptol Boutique Cinema, and will feature an unmatchable selection of documentaries that have been awarded at Cannes, Tribeca, Locarno, Sundance, IDFA and even nominated for the upcoming Oscars.

After two challenging years, temporary relocation to new dates, and new (old) spaces, ZagrebDox marks its coming of age in the spring term by returning to the Kaptol Boutique Cinema! With the belief that we are achieving signs of stability, as well as offering visitors the best conditions for watching the best current documentary stories from around the world, the ZagrebDox program resonates with events around us, reflecting everything that is happening in the world today.

The adult, 18th edition of ZagrebDox will be held from April 3 to 10 and offer the audience to step into numerous life stories, situations, relationships, and parts of the world in cinemas that are today, more than ever, less accessible and determined by numerous restrictions. With eighty film achievements, the audience will be able to question the meaning of divisions, borders, wars, individual responsibilities, crises as a consequence of the functioning of the system, but also the importance of contact, relationships, communication, coexistence, independence, individuality, and coping.

Director of ZagrebDox, Nenad Puhovski. (Photo: Marin Tironi/PIXSELL)

Thirty documentary film achievements will be featured in the international and regional competition of the ZagrebDox competition program, while other films are distributed in official programs such as Biographical Dox, Masters of Dox, Teen Dox, and the always popular programs Controversial Dox and State of Things.

The competition program brings many films recognized at festivals around the world: A Night of Knowing Nothing is a debut film by director Payal Kapadia that speaks through the form of letters about the forbidden love of two Indian students separated due to belonging to different castes. This hybrid of documentary and fiction through an intimate story sheds light on broader socio-political issues in today’s India, and at the Cannes Film Festival won the Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary.

Questioning the notion of the "Chinese dream" today and exploring capitalist hyperproduction and the paradox of progress, the film Ascension by American author Jessica Kingdon, an Oscar-nominated documentary and the best documentary of the Tribeca Film Festival, takes us to China. At the mentioned festival, the author was also awarded for the best documentary debutante.

The shocking multi-award-winning Swedish documentary Sabaya by director Hogir Hirori takes us to the most dangerous Islamic State (ISIS) camp in the Middle East, following a group of young men who risk their own lives to save girls trapped as sex slaves. This impressive film won about 15 awards, including the best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as at international film festivals in Moscow, Stockholm, Hong Kong, and DocAviv.

At ZagrebDox, we will also show the current winner of the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) in the Envision competition program - Lebanese author Karim Kassem's film Octopus, a metaphysical film study of the consequences of the explosion in the port of Beirut.

A new film by the renowned Polish author Paweł Łoziński, well-known to the festival, The Balcony Movie is also part of an international competition program. For two years, Łoziński used a camera to record neighbors, passers-by, and random visitors from his own balcony. The film won the Grand Prix in the Critics Week Award category at the Locarno International Film Festival.

The debut film Father by Chinese author Wei Deng, a portrait of two generations in the director’s family, depicts tradition, change, violence, and alienation in Chinese society. At the DOK Leipzig festival, he was awarded the Golden Dove.

In addition to the film program, ZagrebDox includes the ZagrebDox PRO platform dedicated to the education of film professionals, as well as a number of additional content in the form of special screenings, discussions, presentations, about which you can find more information on how to apply here.

Applications to volunteer at the 18th ZagrebDox are open until March 15 and you can find more information here.

More news about this year's ZagrebDox can be followed on the official website of the festival.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, 24 January, 2021 - Croatian filmmaker Dalibor Barić has confirmed to Hina that his "Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus" is one of the 27 titles that will be considered for nomination in the Animated Feature category at the 93rd Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards.

U.S. film portal The Wrap has reported that a week ago, due to the pandemic, it was believed said category would have only 13 competing films but that another 14 were added, including Barić's, which was produced by the Zagreb-based production company Kaos.

"Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus" had its world premiere at Annecy and has participated in many international festivals, the main platform for presenting films in times of a pandemic, including Zagreb, Bogota, Thessaloniki and Seville.

According to the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, the film "is a story about Martin, who tried to fight the system but is now on the run, and conceptual artist Sara. Together, they join a revolutionary commune in the countryside, with the police on their trail. Inspector Ambroz knows that asking the right questions is more important than the answers, because maybe none of this is true."

Barić, born in 1974, animated, directed and edited the film, as well as writing the script and the music.

Vino&Kino (in English the title would be translated as Wine&Movies, so you can appreciate that it does make more sense and rhymes better in Croatian) are a series of events organized by Jelena Bulum, in which she tries to tie together the two worlds that don't seem to have much in common: wine and movies. OK, well, a lot of both is made in California, so they do have something in common.

This Tuesday and Wednesday, on February 5th and 6th, the events will take place in Bornstein wine bar and shop in Zagreb, starting at 7 pm. This will be the first instalment of the events in 2019, and it will be dedicated to the Academy Awards, usually just called the Oscars. This year, the award ceremony will be held on February 24th in Los Angeles, and Vino&Kino will introduce us to some of the favourites for thr prestigious award.

The movies presented will be accompanied by the Oscars' worthy sparkling wines made by the vintners from Plešivica, Drago Kurtalj and Dominik Jagunić. Their wines are also winning awards all over the world, and at the Vino&Kino event, the guests will get the chance to taste Jagunić's Three Stars Brut, Rhein Riesling and Rot-traminer, and Kurtalj's Rosé and Prestige cuvée (2013).

Movies which are considered as this year's favourites for the Oscars will be presented (their trailers will be shown, not the entire movies, of course), and the stories of those movies will be told by Martin Milinković, long-time movie professional and a favourite of the Vino&Kino guests in the past.

Jelena Bulum will be the hostess for the evening, and in addition to the wines you'll get the chance to enjoy the creative bites from the Bornstein kitchen

The first event on Tuesday is already sold out, but you can still get in on Wednesday, and the price of admission is 150 kuna.