Moral controversies and dystopian visions of the future in focus on Wednesday

The sixth day of the 17th Zagreb Film Festival will be marked by the premiere of the Danish Oscar candidate, the erotic drama directed by May el-Toukhy about the affair of a successful lawyer and her significantly younger stepson which opens a whole range of moral and ethical questions. Queen of Hearts will be screened at 9:30 AM and 8 PM at Tuškanac Cinema.

The Dutch drama Afterlife from the PLUS program, which is selected and awarded by Zagreb highschoolers, will be screened from 2 PM at Tuškaanc. In the Great 5 program, the Spanish drama The August Virgin will be screened at 5 PM at Tuškanac Cinema. This new film by the renowned Spanish director Jonás Trueba is an atmospheric portrait of a long hot summer in the Spanish capital which received a Special Jury Mention in Karlovy Vary. The program for the youngest cinephiles continues at 5 PM in the Museum of Contemporary Art with the Danish adventure film Land of Glass.

The new film by Gabriel Mascaro Divine Love will be screened at 7 PM at the Museum of Contemporary Art within the competition program Together Again. This intoxicating work is a neon-colored religious dystopia in which gospel and erotica intertwine in order to narrate a relevant story about religion and power.

The program at the Museum of Contemporary Art continues at 9 PM with the film from the Great 5 program, La Belle Époque by Nicolas Bedos, a quirky rom-com about a grumpy 60-year-old Victor (Daniel Auteuil) who is convinced his best days are long gone.

The program My First Film: In memoriam continues in KIC with the key work of the Czechoslovak New Wave, Miloš Forman’s first feature film Black Peter, filmed in a cinéma vérité style with the camera buzzing around the characters played by non-professional actors, it depicts the atmosphere of an ordinary summer in a small Czech town in the early 60’s. The program in KIC continues at 9 PM with the side program Festivals in the Spotlight. For the third year running, the collaboration with the Venice Film Festival continues, and tonight five short films from the special selection will be screened for the Zagreb audience.

The day ends in Tuškanac Cinema at 10:30 PM with the program of international short films and Croatian short films, Checkers. The program features Father-time by Bulgarian director Martin Iliev, and She Runs by Chinese director Qiu Yang. Checkers will present the new film by Jakov Nola, Homely and Labour Day Waltz by Zoran Stojkovski.

The Industry program continues on Wednesday with the panel Can you make an artistic hit game? From 3 PM at HUB385 in Petračićeva 6. The panel is moderated by Srđan Laterza, author of the Interactive empathy project, in which video game designers, artists, educators and representatives of governing bodies from Croatia, Germany and France will participate. The discussion will revolve around numerous aspects of the artistic approach to video games – how designers and artists create games which push the creative limits of that medium, and how the use of interactivity can tell a story with which the players can connect, but also how to create an atmosphere in which video games can be highly successful.