The Zagreb Film Festival announces its line-up
- The 22nd edition brings an array of attractions in sidebars and myriad industry events to complement its main competition section, where first and second features will vie for the Golden Pram Award
The 22nd Zagreb Film Festival will take place from 4-10 November at five different locations across the Croatian capital, as well as on the croatian.film platform. The complete line-up for the forthcoming edition was presented at a press conference that took place on Wednesday 16 October, held by the trio of festival heads, festival director Boris T Matić, programme director Selma Mehadžić and executive director Lana Matić.
The main programme features nine titles, of which eight are eligible competitors for the Golden Pram Award. Bruno Anković’s Celebration [+see also:
film review
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interview: Bruno Anković
film profile] will open the festival, while Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language feature-length debut, The Room Next Door [+see also:
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trailer
film profile], will close it as the only non-competitive title in the main selection. Films by Marko Đorđević (Enough for Now [+see also:
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film profile]), Agathe Riedinger (Wild Diamond [+see also:
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interview: Agathe Riedinger
film profile]), Leonardo van Dijl (Julie Keeps Quiet [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leonardo van Dijl
film profile]), Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain [+see also:
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film profile]), Scandar Copti (Happy Holidays [+see also:
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interview: Scandar Copti
film profile]), Bogdan Mureşanu (The New Year That Never Came [+see also:
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trailer
film profile]), Pat Boonnitipat (How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies) and Laurintas Bareiša (Drowning Dry [+see also:
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interview: Laurynas Bareiša
film profile]) will be showcased in competition. They will be judged by a jury consisting of filmmaker Ninna Pálmadóttir, producer Anamaria Antoci and curator Sonja Baksa.
The big news comes from the festival’s shorts section, since from this year, the Zagreb Film Festival has joined the European Film Academy Short Film Network, which has made it one of the circa 30 festivals around Europe to serve as European Film Award-qualifying events. This year’s international competition counts ten titles, while the national one, Checkers, sports eight. They will all be judged by the same jury, consisting of the directors of last year’s winning films, Daniel Soares and David Gašo, as well as selector Yulia Serdyukova.
The status of the PLUS selection, dedicated to films for youth audiences, has also changed this year. It remains a separate competition that will be judged by the youth jury, but selected films from the main programme – those that deal with coming-of-age themes and the challenges of youngsters’ lives – are also eligible for the award. This section will feature this year’s winner of Locarno, Toxic [+see also:
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interview: Saulė Bliuvaitė
film profile] by Saulė Bliuvaitė, as well as Neo Sora’s Happyend and India Donaldson’s Good One.
Seven filmmakers whose work is already known to Zagreb Film Festival audiences from previous editions of the gathering are coming back to take part in the Together Again selection. Films like When the Light Breaks [+see also:
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interview: Rúnar Rúnarsson
film profile] by Rúnar Rúnarsson, Dwelling Among the Gods [+see also:
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interview: Vuk Ršumović and Fereshteh …
film profile] by Vuk Ršumović, Emmanuelle [+see also:
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interview: Audrey Diwan
film profile] by Audrey Diwan and This Is Not a Love Song [+see also:
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film profile] by Nevio Marasović will be locking horns, while Janez Burger’s Observing [+see also:
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interview: Janez Burger
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The Big Five section brings films from the five biggest national film industries in Europe – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK – in co-operation with the embassies and the cultural institutions of those countries. Movies by Jacques Audiard (Emilia Perez [+see also:
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film profile]), Jonás Trueba (The Other Way Around [+see also:
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interview: Jonás Trueba
film profile]), Giulia Louise Steigerwalt (Diva Futura [+see also:
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trailer
film profile]), Matthias Glasner (Dying [+see also:
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interview: Matthias Glasner
film profile]) and Nora Fingscheidt (The Outrun [+see also:
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interview: Nora Fingscheidt
film profile]) will be shown as part of the selection.
Five films (one classic, Vatroslav Mimica’s An Event from 1969, and four contemporary works, Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow [+see also:
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interview: Gints Zilbalodis
film profile], Stefanie Kolk’s Milk [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Stefanie Kolk
film profile], Ernst de Geer’s The Hypnosis [+see also:
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interview: Asta Kamma August
interview: Ernst De Geer
film profile] and Peter Hoogendoorn’s Three Days of Fish [+see also:
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interview: Peter Hoogendoorn
film profile]) will be shown in the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region competitive section. The Zagreb Film Festival has also maintained the KinoKino section, dedicated to children’s audiences, and Festivals in the Spotlight, which showcases short films from the gatherings that the festival has co-operation agreements with.
The industry section includes the firmly established My First Script workshop, where scriptwriters and filmmakers Antonio Nuić and Pjer Žalica, with the help of their Czech colleague Pavel Marek, will work with the writers of the six selected feature-debut projects. There will also be master classes by filmmaker Rúnar Rúnarsson and editor Marco Costa, the Industry Youth! pitching forum for projects by the students of five regional academies, the Trailer Editing Workshop, the My First Video Game workshop for children and the ZFF Film Club for Cinephiles 54+, a film criticism workshop for mature cinemagoers. On top of those events, already well known from previous years, there will be plenty of panel talks, round-tables and a casting workshop called Audition as Networking, led by actress Katarina Madirazza with additional insights provided by producers Tamara Babun and Matija Drniković, director Filip Heraković and casting director Sanja Drakulić.
The complete programme is available to peruse here.
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