The Brazilian drama Loveling, with the presence of director Gustavo Pizzi, opened the 16^th ZFF on Sunday evening. Film lovers filled the Europa cinema and the celebration of ZFF’s sweet 16 gathered many filmmakers, artists and famous names from the cultural and public life.

This year’s rich program was presented by the festival director Boris T. Matić and executive director Hrvoje Laurenta. In eight festival days over 100 films from all over the world will be screened, and the common trait stretching through the main competition entries is that this year it focuses on protagonists on turning points. Hrvoje Laurenta mention the biggest festival expansion ever this year – a part of the main program will screen simultaneously in 16 Croatian cities and two children’s villages, aiming to nurture art cinema audience across the country.

Next to usual off programs, a new section Cinema at the Cinema was presented, dedicated to the magical common movie-watching ritual. The line-up is dedicated to Europa cinema, the beauty hosting us for the past 11 years, where we hope to remain for the next 11 too, said Matić.

The Albert Kapović Award for outstanding contribution to the promotion of Croatian cinema went to Sanja Ravlić. Mrs Ravlić was part of a small team who launched Croatian Audiovisual Centre in 2007, the umbrella institution for film in the country, in which she was active for years. She launched many open calls for script, film and TV project development and promoted international co-productions, audiovisual heritage preservation and survival of public television. She was our long-time representative with Eurimages, where she paved the road to many Croatian minority co-productions. The award was presented to her, on behalf of HRUP, by producer Vanja Sremac.

Over 100 films, 8 days, 16 cities, 100 film guests from all over the world. All this at the 16^th Zagreb Film Festival. See you at the cinema!