Friday at ZFF

On the eve of Saturday’s official awards ceremony, Kaptol Boutique Cinema presents the final three feature films in the main competition for the Golden Pram. Among them is Josephine, the sophomore feature by American-Brazilian director Beth de Araújo, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Inspired by the director-screenwriter’s personal experience, the story follows eight-year-old Josephine (Mason Reeves), whose world changes completely after witnessing a brutal crime in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Alongside the brilliant Reeves, the film stars Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan, screening at 10:00 and 18:00.

Also in contention for the festival’s main award this year is Adult Supervision, the feature debut by Swedish writer, director, and playwright Alex Schulman, screening on Friday at 12:30 and 20:30 at Kaptol Boutique Cinema. The plot follows middle-aged Bill (Gustaf Skarsgård; Vikings, 2013; Oppenheimer, 2023), who decides to join his thirteen-year-old daughter on a school trip hoping to mend their relationship, entirely unaware that he will find himself in the middle of a conflict forcing him to confront his own past. At the same location at 15:00 and 21:00, the schedule features the atypical love story I Plant My Hand In The Garden by directing duo Hoda Taheri and Boris Hadžija, centered on Iranian refugee Hoda living in Berlin, who plans to marry Boris, a queer man from Serbia. Premiered at Venice, the film skilfully blurs the line between reality and fiction, a topic director Boris Hadžija will discuss with programme coordinator Barbara Gregov during a Q&A session following the evening screening.

Screening in the Together Again programme on Friday at 18:30 at Kaptol Boutique Cinema is the latest film by two-time ZFF laureate Radu Jude (The Happiest Girl in the World, ZFF 2009 – Special Mention; Everyone in Our Family, ZFF 2012 – Golden Pram). Diary of a Chambermaid is a satirical and at times unexpectedly tender story about young housemaid Gianina (Ana Dumitrașcu), who prepares a play of the same name with an amateur theatre troupe at night. In the adjacent auditorium at the same time (18:30), the PLUS programme presents Félix de Givry‘s (Arco, 2025) touching film Goodbye Cruel World, which closed this year’s Critics’ Week at Cannes. Starring Milo Machado-Graner, known to Zagreb audiences from Anatomy of a Fall (ZFF 2023), the film competes for the PLUS Young Jury Award.

Winner of this year’s Adriatic Region Film and TV Academy Award for Best Actor (Andrija Kuzmanović), Vladimir Tagić’s film Yugo Florida screens on Friday at 16:00 at Kaptol Boutique Cinema as part of the special programme Adriatic Film Awards: Award-Winning Films. The film follows Zoran, whose odd, almost meaningless life changes when he learns that his estranged father (Nikola Pejaković) is terminally ill. Admission to the screening is free, with mandatory ticket pickup at the box office.

Screening at 21:00 at Kaptol Boutique Cinema is a repeat showing of Cannes winner Coward by Belgian director Lukas Dhont (Close, ZFF 2022), following soldiers Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia) and Francis (Valentin Campagne) who find refuge from the horrors of World War I in art. As part of the same programme, Together Again, MSU hosts another screening of Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Minotaur on Friday at 18:00. The two-time ZFF laureate (The Return, ZFF 2003 – Golden Pram; The Banishment, ZFF 2007 – Golden Pram) centres his new film on a powerful businessman whose life begins to unravel upon discovering his wife’s infidelity. The film is France’s official Oscar candidate and premiered at Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix.

Following Minotaur, MSU will screen Wicker by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, a whimsical romantic tale led by the fantastic Olivia Colman (Tyrannosaur, ZFF 2011) and Alexander Skarsgård (Pillion, ZFF 2025) about a Fisherwoman who commissions a wicker husband from the local basket maker. The film screens in the Great 5 programme, which also features a Friday showing of Faraz Shariat‘s Prosecution. Winner of the Audience Award for Best Feature Film in the Panorama section at the Berlinale, this blend of courtroom drama and political thriller confronts audiences with uncomfortable truths about institutionalized violence and racism. The film screens at 19:00 at Kinoteka Cinema.

Kinoteka Cinema’s schedule continues at 21:30 with screenings of domestic and international short films. On Friday, festival audiences will have the chance to discover works by Alba Jaramillo (Guided Tour), Italian director Sara Scalera (Puca), and Serbian director Tamara Todorović (Nobody Said Anything), as well as films by Petar Vukičević (Karst) and Sonja Tarokić, whose short Wind Beneath the Wings screens out of competition in the Checkers programme. Three winning titles from previous ZFF Checkers competitions—Jozo Schmuch‘s Shallow Ground (2025), Sara Alavanić‘s Spot (2024), and David Gašo‘s Short Cut Grass (2023)—will be shown on Friday at 19:30 at Cinema Surogat KIC as part of a special, inclusive programme organised in collaboration with the DLAN Association – Theatre, Audiovisual Arts and Culture of the Deaf. All three films are adapted into Croatian Sign Language, and admission is free until seating capacity is reached.

Industry, the festival’s programme dedicated to networking for film professionals, presents the final Industry Youth! Pitching Forum on Friday at 10:00 at Cinema Surogat KIC, where students from regional film academies will pitch the short film projects developed over the past week. Organised in collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum, Kinoteka Cinema will host a masterclass by acclaimed Austrian director, screenwriter, and producer Ulrich Seidl at 16:30, titled The Camera Doesn’t Look Away. The master director will discuss his signature filmmaking style, the distinction between directing documentary and fiction films, and his approach to working with actors. The masterclass will be moderated by film critic Nino Kovačić and is open to the public.

We invite you to join us at Koncept Bar (Tkalčićeva 63), ZFF’s official festival hub for socialising and informal film talks. Happy hour awaits every day from 17:00 to 18:00, and from 20:00 onwards on Friday, Pytzek will be taking care of the music and atmosphere.

The 24 th Zagreb Film Festival will take place from 9 to 15 November with the support of the City Office for Culture and Civil Society, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Creative Europe – MEDIA Sub-programme, the Kultura Nova Foundation, and the Zagreb Tourist Board.