Croatia loves film festivals, but in such a small market (4.5 million people) there’s very little room for festivals focused on niche genres. Thankfully, the global rise of geek culture and its domination in mainstream media has peaked an interest in local general audience towards fantasy and pulp genres, high enough interest for a festival with those films to succeed. In comes Fantastic Zagreb film festival which has brought us a treasure cove of international modern and cult camp, pulp, fantasy, science fiction, horror, thriller and mystery films that would be hard to see on our own, at least legally.
Fantastic Zagreb has one more thing going for it: the festival has the pleasure of opening the season of Tuškanac cinema’s summer stage. The open air cinema is hidden in the shade of the forest surrounding it and the experience of watching films there is completely different then in closed cinemas . You can also have beer and wine there and bring your dog. Other projections are at Kino Europa and Cinestar Branimir theater.
The 6th Fantastic Zagreb starts on June 30th and lasts until July 7th at those locations. Each edition of the festival has a special focus on the works of a specific author, often those that have some sort of anniversary that year. With mister Hayao Miyazaki celebrating his 75th birthday, the festival will focus on the masterworks created by the legendary author (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro…). Other cult films that have their anniversary will be shown in the Happy Birthday program (A Clockwork Orange, Aliens, Escape From New York, Forbidden Planet).
Americana (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Invitation…) and Orient Express (Ryuzo and His Seven Henchmen, The Boy and the Beast…) bring newest fantasy and camp from the west and east continents, while Midnight Madness brings latest horror films from all around (The Witch, Idyll, Demon…). Other programs include Children’s Weekend, Panorama, Shorts at Swanky Mint Hostel and of course the main feature film program.
You can check out the entire schedule, trailers and venues HERE.
