Titles Revealed for the Popular Great 5 Program

From Petzold’s latest work and Harris Dicksinson’s feature debuts to the winner of the Spanish Oscars, the Great 5 program continues to bring audiences the latest trends from Europe’s major national cinemas

The Great 5, a cult side program of the Zagreb Film Festival, has been bringing to the big screen a selection of films from the five major European cinemas since 2008: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain.

The 23^rd edition of ZFF brings to the big screen the new film by Christian Petzold, one of the most prominent contemporary German directors, who first introduced himself to the ZFF audience back in 2014 with Phoenix. Named after a composition by French composer Maurice Ravel, Miroirs No. 3 (2025) is an intriguing psychodrama about trauma and memory, themes present in Petzold’s entire oeuvre. The film follows young piano student Laura (Paula Beer, Udine, ZFF 2020; Afire, ZFF 2023), who, after a car accident, ends up in the care of a bystander, Betty (Barbara Auer). At first wary of her, Betty’s husband and son gradually accept Laura into their family, but their fragile make-believe is soon disturbed by mysterious ghosts from the past.

A minimalist approach to complex questions of identity also marks The Stranger (L’étranger, 2025), the new film by acclaimed French director François Ozon (By the Grace of God, Berlinale Golden Bear 2019). Adapted from Albert Camus’ classic of world literature, Ozon translates to the screen all the existential dread and bureaucratic absurdity of the famous story of the apathetic Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), who faces trail for a cold-blooded murder. The sense of detachment is further reinforced by the black-and-white cinematography of Manuel Dacosse. This French entry in the Great 5 program at ZFF arrives just two months after its Venice premiere.

Urchin (2025), the feature debut of British actor and director Harris Dickinson, known to audiences for his roles in Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness (Palme d’Or 2022) and Halina Reijin’s Instinct (2024), also places a complex character at its center: Mike (Frank Dillane), a young homeless addict drifting along London’s margins on his path to recovery. Focusing on the self-destructive impulses of its (anti)hero, Dickinson’s debut displays remarkable maturity, confirmed by the FIPRESCI Award and Best Actor award (Frank Dillane) at Cannes, where the film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section.

Thanks to the collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, this year’s Italian entry in the program is Familia (2024), a tense drama by Francesco Costabile (Una Femmina). The film follows Luigi (Francesco Gheghi), whose life becomes complicated when his violent father returns from prison. This subtle and at times unsettling exploration of domestic violence, and the scars left by a turbulent upbringing, is adapted from the memoirs of Italian writer Luigi Celeste. Premiering in Venice, the film earned Francesco Gheghi and Tecla Insolia awards for Best (Young) Actors. Familia is also Italy’s official submission for the Academy Award.

Audiences craving high-quality political thrillers will be in for a treat this autumn, as director Arantxa Echevarría Carcedo (Carmen & Lola, Goya Award for Best New Director 2018) presents her latest film in Zagreb. The story follows a secret agent who infiltrates ETA, the Basque separatist paramilitary group. Premiering at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, Undercover (La Infiltrada, 2024) went on to win the prestigious awards for Best Film and Best Actress (Carolina Yuste) at the 39^th Goya Awards, Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars.

The film is presented in the Great 5 program thanks to the collaboration with the Embassy of Spain and the Goyas en Itinerancia initiative, created by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the Spanish Film Academy to promote films awarded at the most recent edition of the Goya Awards. For the same reason, this year’s ZFF will alto feature a selection of Spanish short films nominated for this prestigious award.

The 23^rd Zagreb Film Festival will take place from November 10 to 16, 2025 at CineStar Branimir, Kinoteka, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU), and Dokukino KIC.

The festival is held with the support of the City Office for Culture and Civil Society, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Creative Europe – MEDIA sub-programme, Kultura Nova Foundation, and the Zagreb Tourist Board.