12-11-2015

13th Zagreb Film Festival Kicks Off This Saturday

    The 13th Zagreb Film Festival (November 14-22) kicks off this Saturday night with the screening of Grímur Hákonarson's Rams. The Cannes Un Certain Regard Award and nominee for European Film 2015 at the EFAs is among 12 other films in the competition for Golden Pram for Best Feature Film and €4,000. In attendance at the screening will be the Rams film crew - director Grímur Hákonarson and lead actors Sigurður Sigurjónsson and Theodór Júlíusson.

    The festival's rich line-up consists this year of feature films by first or second time directors also includes Venice Film Festival winner, Venezuelan From Afar by Lorenzo Vigas and winner of Orizzonti Special Mention section Neon Bull by Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro. From the region, two Czech films are also included in this years competition - Oscar nominated dramedy Home Care by Slavek Horak, which premiered in Karlovy Vary's main competition and Family Film by Olmo Omerzu, which just earned its lead Karel Roden the Award for Outstanding Actor at Cottbus.

    Also competing for the main award is Hungarian foreign language Oscar nominee and winner of Cannes Grand Jury Prize Son of Saul by Laszlo Nemes, Bosnian Oscar nominee Our Everyday Story by Ines Tanović and Danish Oscar entry War by Tobias Lindholm. Zagreb audience wll also have a chance to see multiply awarded Icelandic-Danish-Croatian co-production Sparrows, winner of Chicago, Varsaw and San Sebastian film festivals, the Australian-Vanuatu entry Tanna, the winner of Venice International Critic's Week Award and poetic Estonian film In the Crosswind directed by Martti Helde.

    All films will be Croatian premieres, and the filmmakers will be joining the Zagreb audiences: Rams film crew - director Grímur Hákonarson and lead actors Sigurður Sigurjónsson and Theodór Júlíusson, Sparrows - director Rúnar Rúnarsson, actor Ingvar E. Sigurdsson and Croatian co-producer Igor A. Nola; Neon Bull director Gabriel Mascaro; Home Care director Slavek Horak and Our Everyday Story director Ines Tanović and actors Uliks Fehmiu and Jasna Ornela Bery and many others.


    The winners in the 13th ZFF feature fiction competition will be decided by a jury consisting of: Levan Koguashvili, director of the last year’s ZFF winner Blind Dates, Jessica Woodworth, director (Khadak, Fifth Season) and Cristoph Thoke, producer (Of Horses and Men, special mention at 12th ZFF).

    Apart from more than 100 films from all four corners of the world brought to you by the 13th edition of Zagreb Film Festival in the Croatian capital between 14 and 22 November, this year a parallel Industry program will run and offer its visitors a handful of opportunities to find out first-hand about the experiences of many renowned filmmakers.

    Masterclasses will be held by two members of this year’s feature competition jury,director Jessica Woodworth and producer Christoph Thoke, and Danish film editor Jesper Osmund, who will share his 25 years of experience in film (post)production. Osmund is also having a Rough Cut workshop for previously selected Croatian documentary projects. In the PLUS program, intended for high schoolers, Dutch director and actress Tamar van den Dop, after a screening of her film Supernova, will share her thoughts about filmmaking experience with our young audience. 

    Celebrating the 10th birthday of Checkers, Croatian short film competition, several of ZFF’s programs will focus on short film. A panel about placement and distribution of short film will host speakers Laurence Raymond (short film selector at Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight), Salette Ramalho (one of the directors of Curtas Vila do Conde Film Festival in Portugal, one of the most important short film festivals in the world), Mario Kozina of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre and ZFF’s director Boris T. Matić.

    In association with the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, we will present the Polish Wajda Film School, i.e. the intense EKRAN+ program, and a continuation of previous collaborations with Sarajevo Film Festival and film.factoryprogram of the Sarajevo Film Academy. 

    The fourth edition of this program intended for both film professionals and amateur enthusiasts interested in various aspects of filmmaking features many training programs: a screenwriting workshop My First Script is this year gathering six new participants who will develop their screenwriting debut features under the mentorship of script doctors (Srđan Koljević and Pjer Žalica.

    The complete list of films in competition is available here. http://www.zff.hr/en/program/main-program