12/11/2024 - The other winners included Santosh, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, Block 5, and shorts from Croatia, Spain and Taiwan

The presentation of the Golden Bicycle Award to the Santosh team (© Samir Cerić Kovačević/Matej Grgić)

The 22nd edition of the Zagreb Film Festival came to a close at an awards ceremony that took place on Saturday 9 November at the CineStar Branimir Cinema in the Croatian capital. The ceremony was hosted by festival director Boris T Matić and programme director Selma Mehadžić, and it was followed by the screening of the Venice Golden Lion-winning film The Room Next Door [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Pedro Almodóvar. Additional screenings also took place the following day.

The jury, consisting of Icelandic filmmaker Ninna Pálmadóttir, Romanian producer Anamaria Antoci and Croatian-Canadian programmer Sonja Baksa, decided to present Leonardo Van Dijl’s feature-length debut, Julie Keeps Quiet [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leonardo van Dijl
film profile], with the main festival award, the Golden Pram. “The main film prize goes to a mature, well-measured and finely calibrated feature debut that showcases incredible command of tone, structure and pacing. The psychological drama and inner tension are handled beautifully, with stylistic touches and repetition that build slowly on the character’s inner turmoil with impressive restraint and complexity,” they stated. Although an official Special Mention was not given out this year, the same jury decided to also single out Larynas Bareiša’s Drowning Dry [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurynas Bareiša
film profile] for its “masterfully crafted storytelling, profound performances and bold tone”.

Golden Prams were also given to short films in two competitions, the international one and the national one, called Checkers. The jury, consisting of filmmakers and past festival winners David Gašo and Daniel Soares as well as programmer Yulia Serdyukova, decided to award An Chu’s The Stag as the Best International Short Film and Sara Alavanić’s Spot as the Best Croatian Short Film. This year’s novelty was that the Zagreb Film Festival has gained the status of being a qualifying event for the European Film Awards, in the shorts category. The jury thus decided to send Carmen Pedrero’s The Idea of an Island as the European Short Film Candidate – Prix Vimeo for the 2026 European Film Awards.

Traditionally, the Together Again programme of the Zagreb Film Festival is dedicated to filmmakers whose previous efforts competed at prior editions of the festival, enabling them to come back to the programme with their latest works. The winner of the Golden Bicycle this year was decided on by a jury of Croatian film professionals, comprising filmmaker Andrej Korovljev, producer Hrvoje Osvadić and editor Klara Šovagović, and the victor was announced as Sandhya Suri’s crime-drama Santosh [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sandhya Suri
film profile].

This year, the Plus Award for the best coming-of-age film was re-introduced with slightly modified rules: along with the three films in the Plus selection, three additional movies from the main competition were also eligible for it. As it happens, the youth jury decided to award one of those, Pat Boonnitipat’s How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. The even younger children’s jury also had their say regarding the films in the KinoKino section of the festival, aimed at audiences their age. Their decision this year was to reward Klemen Dvornik’s Block 5 [+see also:
film review
film profile].

Here is the complete list of award-winning films:

Official Competition Feature Films

Golden Pram
Julie Keeps Quiet [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leonardo van Dijl
film profile] – Leonardo Van Dijl (Belgium/Sweden)
Unofficial Special Mention
Drowning Dry [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurynas Bareiša
film profile] – Laurynas Bareiša (Lithuania/Latvia)

International Short Films and Checkers

Golden Pram for Best International Short Film
The Stag – An Chu (Taiwan)

Golden Pram for Best Croatian Short Film in the Checkers Programme
Spot – Sara Alavanić (Croatia)

European Short Film Candidate – Prix Vimeo European Film Awards 2026
The Idea of an Island – Carmen Pedrero (Spain)

Together Again

Golden Bicycle
Santosh [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sandhya Suri
film profile] – Sandhya Suri (UK/Denmark/India/France)

Plus

Plus Award
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies – Pat Boonnitipat (Thailand)

KinoKino

KinoKino Award
Block 5 [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Klemen Dvornik (Slovenia/Croatia/Serbia/Czech Republic)