17/10/2025 - The Croatian director’s film is currently in post-production, and explores the fragile ties between seasonal workers and locals in a rapidly transforming tourist region

Gavrilo Jović and Tea Ljubešić in Petty Thieves (© Kadromat)

Croatian filmmaker Mate Ugrin is currently in post-production on his debut feature, Petty Thieves (Sitni Lopovi), a coming-of-age story set in a small Istrian village shaped by mass tourism. The film focuses on the lives of young seasonal workers and the locals whom they cross paths with.

The story follows Rio, a quiet young man from central Istria who works as a kitchen helper in Adriatic resorts while occasionally committing petty thefts from tourists. He takes care of his elderly grandparents and struggles with how best to protect his grandfather, who suffers from dementia. One evening, Andrea, a seasonal beauty-salon worker from Serbia employed at the same resort, notices Rio stealing at the beach. She proposes teaming up to steal from wealthy hotel guests and share the profits. As the pair navigate the tourist season, their partnership deepens into an emotional connection. But when the season slows, Andrea is fired and decides to leave for Germany.

Croatian actor Gavrilo Jović plays Rio, while Tea Ljubešić (Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master [+see also:
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interview: Nikola Ležaić
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Ugrin, who wrote the screenplay, draws inspiration from his own experience growing up in Istria, a region radically transformed by mass tourism. “I seek to portray a community whose infrastructure and activities are completely subordinated to touristic needs. During summer, seasonal migrant workers flock into the community but are not able to integrate into it. With this film, I am drawing from my own experience of migration, accompanied by inevitable attempts at assimilation in new surroundings,” he said when the project was presented at Sarajevo’s CineLink.

The movie was shot last year in the Istrian cities of Pula, Rovinj and Poreč, as well as in surrounding villages. Petty Thieves was presented at the When East Meets West Co-Production Forum, where it won the Film Center Serbia Development Award, and at CineLink Sarajevo, winning the ArteKino Award. Furthermore, it was developed at the EAVE Producers Workshop and the TorinoScriptLab.

Petty Thieves is a Croatian-French-German-Serbian co-production, produced by Daria Blažević and Mate Ugrin for Kadromat, in co-production with Tiphaine Robion for Bordeaux-based In the Cut, Julia Cöllen, Karsten Krause and Frank Scheuffele for Hamburg-based Fünferfilm, and Jelena Angelovski for Nanslafu Films. The project received support from the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, the CNC (Aide aux cinémas du monde), the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, ARTE/Cofinova, MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein and Creative Europe – MEDIA. Completion and release plans are yet to be confirmed.