Zagreb is turning into a city of films for the next nine days as the 13th Zagreb Film Festival opens its doors this Saturday, November 14th. The festival will be held in Kino Europa, Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU), Tuskanac theater and Zagreb Dance Center.
ZFF is one of four A list festivals in Croatia, focusing their program on presentating and promoting debut films and new filmmakers. The main festival competition has so far included directors like Anton Corbijn, Steve McQueen, Radu Jude, Xavier Dolan, Andrei Zviagintsev, Uberto Pasolini, Alexandros Avranas, George Clooney…
When it comes to successful debut films, no other can match up to Orson Welles‘ Citizen Kane. This year marks the 100th year since he was born, and the famed director is getting his very own retrospective on the festival. Having close personal and professional ties to Croatia most of his life, Walles’ retrospective will be accompanied with an exhibition and a publication of collected interviews given to local media during his stays in the country.
Another, albeit a different retrospective is shown in My First Film section of the program, focusing on debut films from now established directors from a certain country. This year we get to see debut films that came from our neighbors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, featuring directors like Emir Kusturica, Ivica Matic and Hajrudin Krvavac, known as the founder of partisan western exploitation films.
The Main Program is divided into feature films, short films and checkers, the latter being a special program dedicated to young local filmmakers who still hadn’t had a chance to make a full length film.
Genre focus this year is horror that comes from behind the iron curtain (no, not communism), featuring films from now former countries (and Romania) that were popular here but not very known in the west. Plenty of vampires, evil spirits and undertakers will find their spotlight in Zagreb Dance Center during the festival.
The Industry section is intended for educational and practical series of workshops, lectures, panels and other programs intended for film professionals, young filmmakers and all other interested participants, covering different aspects of film production. They are held in English language and no prior sign-ups are needed so if you’d like o learn more about the process of making films, this is a good place to start. Masterclasses will be held by Christoph Thoke, Jessica Woodworth, Jesper Osmund and Tamar van den Dop.
Zagreb Film Festival will be held from November 14th to November 22nd, all screenings will have English titles, and you can find out the details of films shown and precise schedule here.
