Zagreb Film Festival always pays special attention to Croatian filmmakers and co-productions between Croatia and other European countries, but this year the main competition includes a record-breaking number of Croatian titles! Out of 14 competitors for Golden Pram, four of them are Croatian co-productions.

The main competition this year includes a record-breaking number of Croatian films – of 13 titles competing for Golden Pram, four are Croatian productions. This is where Quit Staring at My Plate, director Hana Jušić’s feature debut, will premiere.

After the premiere at Pula Film Festival, another Croatian title is presenting to the Zagreb audience in the main competition – Trampoline by the renowned Croatian documentarian Katarina Zrinka Matijević, her first feature fiction venture.

Two co-productions with a Croatian minority stake are also competing for ZFF’s main award: the Macedonian film The Liberation of Skopje, a joint directorial venture by Rade and Danilo Šerbedžija, and the Georgian film The House of Others by Russudan Glurijdze. Both films are current national Oscar candidates.

The Together Again side programme, every year featuring new films by those directors whose previous works competed at earlier festival editions, is hosting the Croatian premiere of Goran by Nevio Marasović, an intriguing thriller set in the idyllic region of Gorski Kotar. Marasović’s previous film Vis-à-Vis won a jury special mention two years ago in ZFF’s feature competition. This line-up also includes Sieranevada, another Croatian minority co-production, directed by one of the founders of the Romanian New Wave and the winner of the best short film at the 2^nd ZFF, Cristi Puiu.

Another Croatian co-production is participating in this year’s edition of Bib for Kids by RBA, suitable for children – a Dutch-Belgian-Croatian title The Day My Father Became a Bush by Nicole van Kilsdonk, based on the popular namesake book about coming-of-age amidst the war, from the point of view of a 10-year-old girl. Several Croatian actors star in the film, including Jan Kerekeš, Hrvojka Begović and Damir Poljičak.

The short form in represented in the main (competition) programme as international and national film (Checkers). Next to a series of up-and-coming directors on the local scene, the Checkers section is presenting a Croatian film outside competition – the award-winning The Beast by Miroslav Sikavica, which premiered this spring in Directors’ Fortnight, the parallel Cannes Film Festival section, winning a jury special mention.