Zagreb’s Romance with Films – Year 12! The First Films from This Year’s ZFF Programme

Zagreb, 23 September – More than one hundred films from all over the world are ready for the 12th edition of Zagreb Film Festival, taking place in Cinemas Europa, Tuškanac and MSU, Zagreb Dance Center and Zagreb Puppet Theater from 19-26 October…

As always, our main competition programme will be showing debutant feature and documentary films and the popular Checkers competition programme will once again offer a selection of Croatian short film production. In the main programme, eight side programmes and a few special programmes, ZFF will present the most intriguing debutant films, recent world hits and timeless classics. Industry – ZFF’s training and networking platform for film professionals – will be taking place for the third year in a row.

The complete festival programme will be presented at the press conference in early October, For now, we can reveal two films from the feature-length fiction competition programme and one from the documentary programme. It is a serious achievement when a Croatian co-production wins an award at one of the most important film festivals in the world: Croatian premiere of the triple laureate of Venice Critics Week – Nobody’s Child – in ZFF main programme is a great opportunity to celebrate this feat at home. The debutant film of Serbian filmmaker Vuk Ršumović juxtaposes civilization and barbarism in an amazing manner. The film is based on the true story about the wild boy from Travnik, Bosnia-Herzegovina who was found in Bosnian mountains in 1988. The film is a Serbian-Croatian co-production. The co-producer is Ankica Jurić Tilić and the original score was composed by Pavo Miholjević and Jure Ferina of Croatian band Svadbas.

Nobody’s Child

Year after year, ZFF shows films from all over the world. The 12th edition is no exception: another trip around the world in eight days is awaiting you. We can single out here the first feature-length Ethiopian film at our festival. Difret, a drama directed by Zeresenay Mehari, will be shown in the competition programme. Based on a true story, it is a film about the trial of a 14-year-old peasant girl who involuntarily shot her kidnaper and rapist. The problem is that, according to a traditional Ethiopian customs, kidnapping of a bride (telefa) is considered as an acceptable way of entering into a marriage. The protagonist is therefore facing death penalty. Sending an important message for girls and women around the world, this film won Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival and Panorama programme of Berlin International Film Festival.

Difret

Documentary film competition programme will, among other films, presents the tragicomic German-Swiss autobiographic documentary Cesar’s Grill, directed by Darío Aguirre. Its author, who chose to pursue an artistic career and has been living and working in Germany for years, returns to his native Ecuador in order to help his father save his old grill spot, encumbered with debts. To make things worse, Cesar’s grill offers various meat dishes and Dario hasn’t been eating meat for twelve years. This seemingly impossible mission which starts with petty squabbles about purchasing of salad transforms into a moving film about family relationships, escaping from one’s background and growing up.

Cesar’s Grill

Five out of eight side programs of the 12th ZFF are our regular programs. Once again they include a selection of films from major European cinematographies (Great 5), the finalists of the European Parliament Prize for achievements in cinematic art (LUX Film Days) and the programme co-created with Queer Zagreb. This year, the latter one is dedicated to British queer-punk filmmaker Derek Jarman. Our regular and exceptionally popular side program Bib for Kids has prepared ten children’s films in cooperation with the embassy of the Kingdom of Denmark. For the first time on the festival we will have Bib PLUS, a programme for teenagers.

As usually, our program My First Film includes the films selected by film critic Nenad Polimac. This year it will be the debutant works of the representatives of Romanian New Wave, Cristi Puiu, Radu Muntean, Florin Serban, Cristian Mungiu and Cristian Nemescu. ZFF has been keeping track of the work of these – now globally acclaimed – filmmakers since its first edition and some of them are ZFF laureates. One of the films in this programme is California Dreamin’, the first and the last film of the tragically deceased Cristian Nemescu, whose short film C Block Story was awarded at the 1st ZFF. Cristi Puiu was awarded at the 2nd ZFF for his short film Coffee And Cigarettes. His debutant film Stuff And Dough will be shown in the programme.

Besides the above mentioned Bib PLUS, this year’s edition of Zagreb Film Festival boasts two more newly introduced side programmes: First World War on Film includes films selected by Daniel Rafaelić, marking the 100th anniversary of the ‘Great War’, and Together Again presents new films of some of the most prominent filmmakers of today whose debutant works were shown at ZFF.
We can also mention here our Industry educational programme with numerous training activities and the usual wide variety of side events. Some very important guests will visit the festival this year. More about this and programme-related news you can find out in our subsequent press releases.

Launching our new web page was a good opportunity to announce as many as three of our film programmes. As of today, you can check on our website (www.zagrebfilmfestival.com) the contents of LUX Film Days, Bib for Kids and First World War on Film programmes.