Excellent films on the program outside Zagreb include Julie Keeps Quiet, an intense character study with Naomi Osaka as executive producer, and controversial Iranian romance My Favourite Cake marked by bans and persecution; Icelandic director Ninna Pálmadóttir and famous writer and director Rúnar Rúnarsson to attend the festival

Part of the well-known amiable atmosphere of the Zagreb Film Festival (November 4 – 10) will once again overflow outside the limits of the capital city. For a number of years, the program ZFF Travels (7 – 10 November 2024) has been held in member cinemas of the Croatian Independent Cinemas Network and, together with online programs, allows film buffs in numerous cities across Croatia to enjoy selected ZFF titles alongside Zagreb audiences. This year, these films are Julie Keeps Quiet, My Favourite Cake, Lars is LOL and Solitude.

Julie Keeps Quiet in competition at this year’s 22^nd ZFF is a tense character study immersed in the world of professional tennis, co-produced by the Dardenne brothers, with tennis player Naomi Osaka as executive producer. The film follows teenager Julie (played by the brilliant Tessa Van den Broeck, herself a tennis player), a rising star at an elite tennis academy who finds herself in the midst of a scandal involving an abusive coach, to which she responds – with silence. The feature film debut of Belgian director Leonardo van Dijl premiered in the Critics’ Week at Cannes. It won the SACD Award for Best Screenplay, and was also nominated for this year’s LUX Audience Award.

Iranian romantic drama My Favourite Cake, by directing duo Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeh, is an endearing portrait of a lonely 70-year-old widow who decides to add a little spice of love to her life. This heart-warming love story between two pensioners (Lili Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi) has unfortunately been marked by a series of persecutions and bans: dissatisfied with the portrayal of the main female protagonist without a hijab and scenes of drinking wine, the Iranian authorities have repeatedly confiscated the directors’ passports and placed them under house arrest, the last time just before the film’s Swedish premiere in mid-September. The film received a standing ovation at its premiere in Berlin, where it won the FIPRESCI Award and the Ecumenical Jury Prize. The film is shown in the program Festivals in the Spotlight, in cooperation with the Split Mediterranean Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award.

The youngest film fans will be delighted by the Norwegian family film Lars is LOL from the KinoKino program. Eirik Sæter Stordahl’s feature debut is a story of the unique friendship between girl Amanda and boy Lars, who has Down’s syndrome.

ZFF Travels will also feature the film Solitude presented in last year’s ZFF program. The feature-length debut by Icelandic director Ninna Pálmadóttir (All Dogs Die – ZFF 2020) portrays an unusual friendship, while its script was penned by director and writer Rúnar Rúnarsson, already a well-known name of the ZFF audience. Ninna Pálmadóttir and Rúnar Rúnarsson will also attend the 22^nd ZFF – Pálmadóttir as a member of the feature film jury, while Rúnarsson will present his latest film and hold a masterclass.

More information about ZFF is available on our official website.