23/11/2015 - A War gets a Special Mention, Prince wins the PLUS programme, A Few Seconds crowned Best Short Film

Lead actor Géza Röhrig with the Golden Pram Award for Son of Saul

The 13th Zagreb Film Festival, which took place for the first time from 14-22 November instead of in mid-October, ended with the Cannes Grand Prix winner Son of Saul [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: László Nemes
interview: László Rajk
film profile] by László Nemes picking up the Golden Pram for Best Feature Film, and €4,000. 

Special Mentions went to Tobias Lindholm's A War [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tobias Lindholm
film profile], and to Bentley Dean and Martin Butler's Tanna (Australia-Vanuatu), winner of the Venice Critics' Week Audience Award. 

In the shorts competition, the Golden Pram and €1,000 went to French director Nora El Hourch's A Few Seconds. The film world-premiered in the Cannes Shorts competition. Ena Serdarijević's Fernweh (Holland) received a Special Mention. 

In the Checkers programme, for short films by local directors who haven't yet made a feature film, and which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, Daina O Pusić's The Beast won the Golden Pram and €1,320. Special Mentions went to the EFA-nominated Picnic by Jure Pavlović and Andrija Mardešić's Two All Alone.

Sam de Jong's Prince [+see also:
trailer
interview: Sam de Jong
film profile] won in the youth-orientated PLUS programme, which was competitive for the first time this year and judged by a five-member jury comprising high-school students. 

The extended industry section this year included the My First Script workshop on screenwriting, led by Pjer Žalica and Srdjan Koljević, master classes by director Jessica Woodworth and producer Christoph Thoke (who both served on the main jury), while editor Jesper Osmund ran the Rough Cut Workshop for documentary projects. In addition, the festival featured presentations by the Wajda Film School and the EKRAN+ project development programme.

“In this, our 13^th edition of the Zagreb Film Festival,” the festival's artistic advisor, Mike Downey, who is also deputy chairman of the European Film Academy, told Cineuropa, “the event is going from strength to strength. The quality of the films, always difficult when having first- and second-timers, represents the very best in new work from all over the world. Zagreb has the world-class cinema event it deserves, and with full backing from the industry, it makes it a centre of excellence for professional training to boot.”