20/03/2025 - The leading Croatian documentary gathering brings a broad and varied film and industry programme to the capital city from 30 March-6 April

The 21st edition of the ZagrebDox International Documentary Film Festival will take place from 30 March-6 April at the usual location of the Kaptol Boutique cinemas in the centre of the Croatian capital. Over the eight days of the gathering, the audience will have the opportunity to watch as many as 107 documentary films across 16 different sections. Twenty movies in the International Competition and 18 titles in the Regional Competition will be vying for the official festival award, the Big Seal. The programme was presented by artistic director Nenad Puhovski and executive director Hrvoje Pukšec at a press conference that took place on 19 March in Zagreb.

“We are here to show you how the world's best filmmakers, of all generations, nationalities and “signatures”, see the world we live in – the real reality. We are here to talk after the screenings, and in that conversation, to exchange thoughts and ideas and try to find hope,” stated Puhovski.

The International Competition brings some festival favourites from last year, such as Birgitte Stærmose’s Afterwar [+see also:
film review
interview: Birgitte Stærmose
film profile], Tomasz Wolski’s A Year in the Life of a Country [+see also:
interview: Tomasz Wolski
film profile], Lidia Duda’s Forest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lidia Duda
film profile], Lidija Zelović’s Home Game [+see also:
film review
interview: Lidija Zelovic
film profile], Ohla Zhurba’s Songs of Slow Burning Earth [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olha Zhurba
film profile] and Masha Chernaya’s The Shards [+see also:
trailer
film profile], to name a few. The same section will also showcase David Borenstein and Pasha Talankin’s Mr. Nobody Against Putin [+see also:
film review
film profile], and Alisa Kovalenko’s My Dear Théo [+see also:
film review
film profile], fresh off their premieres at Sundance and CPH:DOX, respectively.

The Regional Competition will host two world premieres of feature-length documentaries. One of them is the solo feature-length debut by Dalija Dozet, My Dad’s Lesson [+see also:
film review
film profile], while the other is the new film by Stefan Malešević, Soil and Wings [+see also:
film review
film profile]. The event will also showcase prominent festival titles like At the Door of the House Who Will Come Knocking [+see also:
film review
interview: Maja Novaković
film profile] by Maja Novaković, Dad’s Lullaby [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Lesia Diak, Pavilion 6 [+see also:
film review
interview: Goran Dević
film profile] by Goran Dević and Wishing on a Star [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Peter Kerekes
film profile] by Peter Kerekes, among others.

As for the non-competitive sections, the recurring Festival Hits, State of Affairs, Happy Dox, Biography Dox, Masters of Dox and Green Dox selections are back, but this year, the line-up is further enriched by new sections such as Audio Dox and Films About Film.

There have also been some innovations with regard to the industry section, ZagrebDox Pro, which has been overhauled with a view to alleviating the pressures of competition so that participants can get a more focused analysis of their submitted projects, choose the presentation and pitching tools that fit the projects best, receive advice on designing the perfect promotional package in order to achieve distribution success, and get the opportunity to network and attend master class lectures and panels.

The complete programme is available here.