The Premiere of Wind, Talk to Me Marked the Festival’s Third Day

On Wednesday, November 12, the Croatian premiere of Stefan Đorđević’s Wind, Talk to Me, this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival winner, was held at CineStar Branimir before a large ZFF audience. This deeply intimate project, which blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality, attracted many prominent figures from Zagreb’s film and cultural scene. However, the real stars of the premiere were the film’s crew, led by Serbian director and cinematographer Stefan Đorđević. Among them were producer Dragana Jovović, editor Tomislav Stojanović, and cinematographer Marko Brdar, who shared with the festival’s executive producer, Barbara Gregov, after the 9:00 p.m. screening, insights into the making of this poetic docudrama.

One of this year’s festival guests was the acclaimed Spanish director Arantxa Echevarría, whose film Undercover was presented to the Zagreb audience on Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. at Kinoteka (The Great 5 program). The film is part of the 23rd ZFF thanks to the Goyas en Itinerancia initiative, which aims to bring Spanish cinema closer to a wider audience. After the screening, Echevarría discussed her multiple award-winning project with film critic Nino Kovačić.

Among the highlights of the festival’s third day were the sold-out screenings of I Accidentally Wrote a Book (11:00 a.m., Kinoteka), Christy (6:00 p.m., CineStar Branimir), and The Voice of Hind Rajab (8:30 p.m., CineStar Branimir). Christy, directed by Irish filmmaker Brendan Canty, is an exciting coming-of-age story that won the Grand Prix of the International Jury in the Generation 14plus program in Berlin, while Nóre Lakos’s I Accidentally Wrote a Book is a tender story about a girl, Nina, who dreams of becoming a writer. The fact that tickets were in such high demand for Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s powerful docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab carries special significance, as all proceeds from ticket sales are donated to humanitarian medical organizations operating in Gaza.

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.