23rd ZFF Begins Next Monday!

Presale tickets at reduced prices are available for three more days, until November 9

On Monday, November 10, the 23rd edition of the Zagreb Film Festival kicks off! Zagreb’s beloved autumn film event will open with the screening of the Macedonian film DJ Ahmet, directed by Georgi M. Unkovski, shown as part of the festival’s main competition program. Awarded the Audience Award and the Creative Vision Award at Sundance, the film follows a young boy who tries to break free from the strict and restrictive norms of his rural conservative environment through electronic music and his dream of becoming a famous DJ. The energetic beats of the film’s soundtrack, composed by Croatian duo Alen and Nenad Sinkhauz, will set the tone for the festival’s opening night. Throughout the following week, until Sunday, November 16, the festival will take place at five locations – CineStar Branimir, Kinoteka, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Dokukino KIC – bringing audiences more than one hundred film titles.

Among them is the wondrous film Bouchra by Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani (PLUS program), which blends 3D animation, documentary techniques, and innovative narration into a gentle exploration of identity, family, and creativity. Praised for its bold and unexpected fusion of aesthetics and genre, the film follows the relationship between the titular New York–based queer artist and her mother in Casablanca, who, in an effort to bridge the thousands of kilometres between them, enter into an intimate, disarmingly honest phone conversation. Family ties are also placed at the forefront of one of the films from the main competition program, My Father’s Shadow, winner of a Special Mention at Cannes. Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr. drew inspiration from his own upbringing. At the centre of this deeply personal film are two young boys who, in the politically turbulent year of 1993 in Lagos, briefly reconnect with their estranged father, striving to find grounding, both in the chaotic, unfamiliar, and precarious urban landscape and within their own turbulent emotions. The PLUS program will also feature Wild Foxes, directed by Valéry Carnoy, set within the intensely competitive environment of an elite French sports academy. There, a narrowly avoided accident propels its most promising young boxer into a profound questioning of others’ expectations, his own desires, and his future in a sport that leaves no room for vulnerability. The film was awarded the SACD Prize and the Europa Cinemas Label for Best French and European Film in the Directors’ Fortnight section in Cannes.

The new film by ZFF laureate Ivana Mladenović (Ivana the Terrible – ZFF 2019), Sorella di Clausura, is part of the Together Again program. This wildly offbeat socio-sexual satire about a middle-aged woman who has been obsessively in love with an ageing Balkan pop star since childhood confirms the director’s mastery of energetic cinematic storytelling and earned her the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Director. The lead role in this ingenious, witty parody of romantic melodramas built around a central question of how reality and the fictions we create intertwine is played by Katia Pescariu (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn – ZFF 2021). The new film by German master Christian Petzold, Miroirs No. 3 (part of the Great Five program), likewise constructs its narrative on the interplay between the real and the imagined, the past and the present, memory and myth. The story follows a young pianist who, after surviving a car accident, is taken in by a family whose enigmatic, unhealed trauma quietly seeps into everyday life. A suggestive psychodrama marked by Petzold’s signature refined and ethereal style, the film also marks his fourth collaboration with actress Paula Beer (Transit – ZFF 2019, Undine – ZFF 2020, Afire – ZFF 2023).

Torn between a painful past and a promising present is the titular heroine of Perla (part of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region program), a layered family and political drama directed by Alexandra Makarova. Set during the Cold War, the film follows a single mother whose new life in Vienna, where she fled from the repressive regime of Czechoslovakia, is shaken when the father of her daughter unexpectedly reappears, bringing with him the haunting ghosts of the past. Also included in the same program is another cinematic exploration of emotional turning points, this time set in contemporary Vilnius. Renovation, directed by Gabrielė Urbonaitė, is a charming and nuanced portrait of a millennial generation caught between bright possibilities and the overwhelming pressures of the present day.

Information about this year’s program is available on the festival’s website, and tickets at a reduced presale price can be purchased until November 9 at kupiulaznicu.zff.hr. Ticket prices and box office opening hours can be found at the following link.

The Zagreb Film Festival is held with the support of the City Office for Culture and Civil Society, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Creative Europe – MEDIA sub-programme, Kultura Nova Foundation, and the Zagreb Tourist Board.