As a festival dedicated to debut or second films of authors, Zagreb Film Festival takes great care to follow their first short film steps. This year, a selection of best international films in the short film competition is comprised of 12 selected and award-winning films from around the world, and with two Croatian co-productions. All the films are available on the kinoeuropa.hr platform.

Films made in Croatian co-production are All Dogs Die, by the award-winning Icelandic director Ninna Pálmadóttir (Castor Multimedia), and Deer, by Hungarian director István Hevesi (Eclectica).  The selection includes I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face by Sameh Ala, the first Egyptian film in 50 years to be included into the short film selection at Cannes where it won the Palme d’Or for best short film, the Colombian Between You and Milagros by Mariana Saffon, awarded as the best film of the Horizons program in Venice, and the film Leave of Absence by Russian director Anton Sazonov who won the best director award in Locarno.

From Critics’ Week in Cannes we have the French film Dustin by Naïla Guiguet, from the short film competition in Cannes the Greek film Motorway 65 by Evi Kalogiropoulou, and from Venice we have the Portuguese film The Shift by Laura Carreira, nominated for the European Film Award. In the race for the Golden Pram in the short film competition, we also have the Bulgarian film, Motherland, by director Kristina Spasovska, the Dutch film En Route by Marit Weerheijm, the Turkish film Mamaville by Irmak Karasu, and the Serbian film Way Back by Aleksandar Adžić.