This year, the film festival for and designed for the youngest audience, KinoKino – The International Film Festival for Children, at which cinemagoing turns into a special and different experience, will have its special, 5^th edition as part of the 18^th Zagreb Film Festival, from November 9 to 15 at two locations in Zagreb, in Urania – Space of Creation at Kvaternik Square, and in the Croatian Music Institute in Gundulićeva Street.

Urania – Space of Creation will host the main competition program of KinoKino, consisting of the most important recent films for children from all over the world, from Monday to Friday, November 9 to 13, while the weekend is reserved for the side program (Classics and First Time at the Cinema) with screenings at the Croatian Music Institute on Saturday and Sunday, November 14 and 15. Award-winning films from the main program hail from Germany, Austria, Sweden, but also Lithuania and Ireland, and they share the universal message how everyone has the right to their own place in the world, no matter where they come from and the conditions they grew up in.

Too Far Away by German director Sarah Winkenstette, shown and awarded at numerous festivals from the Czech Zlín to Chicago, explores a developing friendship between two rivals on the school soccer team, who share the fact they are both newcomers in town – one from the German countryside, and the other from Syria. Little seems to connect them at the beginning, but with time that completely changes. Oskar and Lily – Where No One Knows Us by Arash T. Riahi is an Austrian film about a family of Chechen refugees whose mother tries to commit suicide in order to avoid deportation. It is a bittersweet odyssey about children who, although separated from their mother, do not give up searching for her. The sequel to the family adventure comedy and Swedish box office hit Sune – Best Man by Jon Holmberg is coming to Zagreb after winning the most important awards of the Swedish Film Academy: for best film, best director, best supporting actress and actor, and after it was featured in the Generation Kplus program of the prestigious Berlinale. It is a story about the new troubles of the goofy family Andersson, which copes with its inner conflicts with a lot of heart and humour. The Castle by Lina Luzyte is a coming-of-age drama about a teenager Monika on her journey to fulfil her music dreams no matter the obstacles she faces.

As always, the best films will be decided by both a professional and children’s jury, while all visitors will decide the winner of the audience award. We also invite all interested elementary school students aged 12 to 15 who want to be part of the children’s jury to apply. All information is available at the official web page (www.kinokino.hr), and applications are open to October 15.

Despite the pandemic times, the festival’s most popular side program will take place. First Time at the Cinema – a bloc of feature and animated films for pre-school children who meet moving pictures on the big screen for the first time, in the weekend edition at the Croatian Music Institute.

Another side program – Classics, designed as a space for viewing older films which are indispensable even for today’s generations, will feature Train in the Snow by Mate Relja, who based it on the children’s classic book by Mate Lovrak, and created a Croatian film classic. Although it was filmed more than four decades ago, the film is still relevant to children and adult audiences for its universal message and is still equally popular today, partly due to the score by Arsen Dedić, which includes the timeless song Kad se male ruke slože (When little hands join together). The screening is organized in collaboration with the inclusive audio-visual program of the Filmaktiv association and the Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County – Film Svima.

In order to make the children’s visit to the cinema during the festival both fun and educational, Čejen Černić, the director of the hit film about the adventures of the boy Koko The Mystery of Green Hill (Golden Arena for best debut), will host a workshop Second Film Step, where last year’s participants of the workshop First Film Step will continue working on the story they had chosen to further develop.

All additional information is available at the festival’s official web-page: www.kinokino.hr