The festival will open with Celebration, the absolute laureate of this year’s Pula Film Festival; for the first time an animated film in ZFF’s main competition – Gints Zilbalodis’ global festival hit Flow

Among the many reasons we look forward to autumn in Zagreb, a special place belongs to the film festival that has combined top film accomplishments, talks with authors, social events, professional training, and great fun, for more than twenty years. Synonymous with quality film offerings, year after year, the Zagreb Film Festival presents the latest and most interesting international productions, and, in anticipation of its 22^nd edition, held from 4 to 10 November, it also unveils the first titles from this year’s program.

After the world premiere at Karlovy Vary and its triumphant Pula Film Festival foray, winning as many as six awards, including the Great Golden Arena for Best Film, Bruno Anković’s debut feature Celebration will have its Zagreb premiere at the opening of the 22^nd ZFF. The screen adaptation of Damir Karakaš’ novel of the same name follows about twenty years in the life of the main protagonist Mijo and his family in a humble village in Lika. Portraying three key moments in his life, Celebration explores the circumstances that have led to the expansion of extremism in society at large. Bernard Tomić, Lars Štern and Jan Doležal appear in the role of Mijo, alongside Krešimir Mikić, Klara Fiolić, Nedim Nezirović, David Tasić Daf, Tanja Smoje, Izudin Bajrović, Viktorija Lulić Tena Šubarić and Rakan Rushaidat completing the rest of the cast.

Lovers of black and offbeat humor will be delighted by two flicks – the Swedish-Norwegian The Hypnosis directed by Ernst de Geer is a dark satire with a cringe factor and Herbert Nordrum (The Worst Person in the World) in the lead. Using a story of a young entrepreneurial couple and a hypnosis session gone wrong, de Geer, inspired by the motif of second-hand embarrassment, directs the satirical gaze at popular slogans such as “be yourself” and “be what you are”.

The Dutch Three Days of Fish directed by Peter Hoogendoorn is a humorous chronicle of the complex relationship between father and son (Ton Kas and Guido Pollemans – Crystal Globe for Best Actor, KVIFF), which critics have likened to the films of Alexander Payne.

The first time ZFF will screen an animated feature in its main competition will be with Flow, one of the most notable achievements of the current year, directed by Latvian author Gints Zilbalodis (Away, 2019). The hero of this visually impressive story of solidarity is a lonely black cat who teams up with other animals in a mission to survive the apocalypse. Flow opened the Un Certain Regard program in Cannes, won the Jury Award, the Audience Award and the Gan Foundation Award for distribution at Annecy, while the screening at ZFF will mark its Croatian premiere.

Arriving hot on the heels of its premiere at the Venice Film Festival (Giornate degli Autori) is the acclaimed debut of Dutch director Stefanie Kolk, Milk. The film deals with the theme of sadness and mourning by telling a gripping story of a young woman who goes through the painful process of losing a child. Days after giving birth to a stillborn baby, Robin makes the unusual decision to donate her milk. As her quest becomes more difficult than she expected, more and more milk starts to accumulate in her freezer, her relationship, and her life.

Celebration is screening in the feature competition, while The Hypnosis, Three Days of Fish, Flow and Milk are part of the competition program of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region.

The opening of the Zagreb Film Festival will be held at Cinema SC, with other screenings held at CineStar Branimir, Cinema Kinoteka, MSU, Dokukino KIC, and online at croatian.film. The new festival location is Zagreb’s theatre Vidra, which becomes the official venue for get-togethers and talks of the 22^nd edition of ZFF.