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 [+lee también:
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entrevista: Birgitte Stærmose
ficha de la película], Tomasz Wolski’s A Year in the Life of a Country [+lee también:
entrevista: Tomasz Wolski
ficha de la película], Lidia Duda’s Forest [+lee también:
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entrevista: Lidia Duda
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entrevista: Lidija Zelovic
ficha de la película], Ohla Zhurba’s Songs of Slow Burning Earth [+lee también:
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entrevista: Olha Zhurba
ficha de la película] and Masha Chernaya’s The Shards [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], to name a few. The same section will also showcase David Borenstein and Pasha Talankin’s Mr. Nobody Against Putin [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], and Alisa Kovalenko’s My Dear Théo [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], 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 [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], while the other is the new film by Stefan Malešević, Soil and Wings [+lee también:
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ficha de la película]. The event will also showcase prominent festival titles like At the Door of the House Who Will Come Knocking [+lee también:
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entrevista: Maja Novaković
ficha de la película] by Maja Novaković, Dad’s Lullaby [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Lesia Diak, Pavilion 6 [+lee también:
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entrevista: Goran Dević
ficha de la película] by Goran Dević and Wishing on a Star [+lee también:
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entrevista: Peter Kerekes
ficha de la película] 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.