PULA: The 68th Pula Film Festival, which ran for the first time under the direction of  new artistic director Pavo Marinković from 17-24 July 2021, gave the Golden Arenas for the best Croatian feature and the best director to the Blue Flower by Zrinko Ogresta.

ZAGREB: The Croatian/Italian/Swedish documentary project Being Related to John Malkovich by Luka Mavretić received the HBO Europe Award at ZagrebDox Pro 2021.

ZAGREB: The Croatian Audiovisual Centre distributed 2.1 m EUR  / 15.8 m HRK for the production of 20 feature, documentary and animation films. A total of 247,000 EUR / 1.9 m HRK was awarded to five minority coproductions.

ZAGREB: Animafest Zagreb 2021 ended on 13 June 2021, after more than 350 screened films and numerous accompanying events in the six days of the festival, with the award ceremony at the SC Cinema, where the Russian film The Nose or the Conspiracy of Mavericks by Andrei Khrzhanovsky received the Grand Jury Prize in the Long Animated Film Competition.

ZAGREB: The number of cinemagoers plummeted to 1,503,306 in the pandemic year of 2020, marking a 70 percent decline compared to 2019. Only two percent of the cinemagoers chose to watch a Croatian film, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Croatia. The six Croatian open-air summer cinemas had 108 percent more performances and 53 percent more visitors compared to 2019.

ZAGREB: Croatia is again becoming an attractive filming destination, following the year of the pandemic. FNE talked to Chris Marcich, head of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC), about dozens of new projects that are being filmed or announced.

ZAGREB: Over 300 artists, mainly musicians and film workers, got vaccinated in a campaign initiated by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media and the Croatian Institute for Public Health. The vaccination took place in the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb and is expected to be the first in a series of similar actions, intended to boost audiovisual production and to restart larger-scale cultural events in Croatia.

PULA: Dutch director Jacqueline Van Vugt started filming her debut feature Crossing in Pula on 5 May 2021. The film, coproduced by Revolver Films (the Netherlands), A Private View (Belgium) and Nukleus film (Croatia), is set in the Mediterranean Sea, but the filming will be done in Croatia. Tax rebates are provided through the Filming in Croatia programme.

ZAGREB: The legendary Croatian film director/scriptwriter Bogdan Žižić died aged 86. He was one of the nation's most prominent authors for decades, helming over 100 short and documentary films.

ZAGREB: Six titles have been selected for the Feature Film Competition of the 31st World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb, which will be held 7 - 12 June 2021. Last year Animafest was one of the very few Croatian festivals that managed to host a live audience in the Cinema SC, and the organisers are planning a new offline edition, if the circumstances allow.