Zagreb Film Festival this year, for the first time instead of traditional October, takes place in November, more specifically from Saturday, 14 to Sunday, 22 November at cinemas Europa and Tuškanac and many other locations across the city. Spurned by the wish to offer an even better and more diverse line-up of films, we have harmonised our calendars with the most prestigious world festivals, like Venice and Toronto and our partner festival LIFFE from Ljubljana – this year ZFF arrives later, but still remains a must in Zagreb’s autumn schedule. Also, this year the festival lasts an extra day, resulting in more screenings, films and categories.
ZFF has from its very beginning been oriented in its programme to presenting and promoting debut films and emerging filmmaking talents. Throughout the past 12 years, today renowned authors like Anton Corbijn, Steve McQueen, Radu Jude, Xavier Dolan, Andrei Zviagintsev, Uberto Pasolini and others competed in the central programme. From this year, the central programme focuses on fiction films, and documentary films will screen only in side sections. An inevitable part of ZFF’s central programme is Checkers, a category dedicated to recent Croatian short films, this year celebrating its 10th birthday – an occasion the Festival will properly celebrate with additional activities.
Next to the main line-up, ZFF again features its well-known off-sections: My First Film, to the selection of film critic Nenad Polimac, presenting debut titles by acclaimed Bosnian and Herzegovinian filmmakers, and The Great 5 traditionally features cherry-picked new works from largest European cinemas. The off-programme includes several catchy novelties: Making of – a section giving film enthusiasts a first-hand insight into another interesting filmmaking dimension, and a line-up of Eastern European horrors featuring rarely seen filmsin the wake of ZFF’s art-house genre programmes (such as Eastern European westerns and SFs).
Film aficionados will undoubtedly be particularly thrilled at the news that ZFF is organising an Orson Welles film retrospective, celebrating the 100th birth and 30th death anniversary of this legendary director, whose oeuvre is largely related to Croatia.
The Festival’s general sponsor is Croatian Telecom. Also, the Festival is funded by the City of Zagreb Office for Culture, Croatian Audiovisual Centre and Creative Europe – MEDIA Sub-programme.
www.zff.hr
