09/04/2025 - The topic of artificial intelligence took centre stage at the 2025 edition of the festival strand brimming with panels and master classes

Anna Giralt Gris and Jorge Caballero during their master class, “Artificial Intelligence in Audiovisual Production”

For its 2025 edition, ZagrebDox Pro organised a wide and varied selection of professional and educational events. Aside from the introduction of the Slow Pitch concept (see the news), a batch of panels and master classes were incorporated into the festival programme, and reflected on both the state of things in the film industry and the various political events happening locally. However, the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), along with the opportunities and the challenges it presents, was what dominated the discussions.

In co-operation with Creative Europe – MEDIA Desk Croatia, ZagrebDox hosted two AI-themed master classes. Anna Giralt Gris and Jorge Caballero, of Artefacto, gave a talk titled “Artificial Intelligence in Audiovisual Production – From Concept to Practice”, during which they shared their experiences and insights concerning the scale of change that AI brings, illustrating their points with recent examples from documentary cinema. While agreeing that it is definitely redefining the landscape, they also stressed that it is still a tool in human hands because it is “neither artificial nor intelligent”.

Another master class titled “Audience Insights and Strategy Through AI-backed Anthropology” was given by Niels Alberg from Publikum. Starting off by making the point that there’s a need to make data more creative because “data people struggle to inspire creative people, and creative people struggle to convince data people”, Alberg presented some ways in which AI-backed anthropology could be used for research and decision making in all three key phases of creation of an audiovisual work, from writing and development, through pitching and funding, to marketing and distribution.

Finally, the Croatian-language panel “Framing the Future: AI, Truth and the Ethics of Documentary” brought in experts from different fields to discuss the creative, technical, ethical and legal challenges presented by the emergence of AI. With Robert Tomić Zuber serving as the moderator (after also moderating both master classes), the discussion was conducted among philosopher and sociologist Nadežda Čačinović, filmmaker Tomislav Fiket, lawyer Marko Porobija and IT expert Marko Zelenović.

Three more master classes were presented as special events in collaboration with the production company Restart, which specialises in staging documentaries. Introduced by film critic and curator Dina Pokrajac, filmmaker Tomasz Wolski analysed his working methods and his approach to archival material in a master class titled “Listening to the Archives”. Margje de Koning, of Movies That Matter Festival, held the master class “Take on Film and Impact”, in which she spoke about how to make an impact and raise audience awareness in collaboration with filmmakers, festivals, campaign managers and NGOs. Also, the Honorary Big Stamp winner, Peter Mettler (see the news), gave the talk “Let Life Make This Film”, hosted by documentary filmmaker and curator Ivan Ramljak.

Two additional panels took place under the festival umbrella. In “Students Blockade – Another World Is Possible”, the filmmaker behind the short documentary The Loudest Silence, Aleksandar Reljić, and Serbian students debated the situation in Serbia and their societal goals, which are not strictly political, with their host, Dina Pokrajac. Another panel, “Audio Dox – Listen to Understand”, welcomed the authors of the audio documentaries that played at the festival, Agnieszka Czyźewska Jacquemet, Daniel Kupšovský, Barbara Matejčić, Liam O’Brien and Nicole Terborg. With their moderator, radio journalist Ljubica Letinić, they discussed the importance of the radio feature as a special art form that documents reality.