ZFF on Tour Across Croatia Once Again

This year’s travelling program includes a Golden Pram contender – the latest film by director Nikola Ležaić, known for his award-winning Tilva Rosh

Festival jury member, director Una Gunjak, will also host a masterclass at ZFF focusing on working with children and non-professional actors

For the twenty-third year in a row, the Zagreb Film Festival will leave a strong cinematic mark on the autumn days, with a carefully curated film package also travelling to cinemas across Croatia. The long-running program ZFF Travels brings a selection of titles to screens of Cinemas Network (Kino mreža) and this year’s touring lineup includes the Venice award-winner Happy Holidays by Palestinian director Scandar Copti, Berlinale winner Dreams (Sex, Love) by Dag Johan Haugerud, the charming animated film Savages by Claude Barras, and How Come It’s All Green Out Here?, the long-awaited new film by Serbian director Nikola Ležaić, who won audiences across the region with his debut Tilva Rosh.

Focusing on an Arab family in Haifa, the dynamic panoramic drama Happy Holidays – winner of the Best Screenplay Award in the Horizons program of the Venice Film Festival – reveals the cracks within increasingly complex social divisions, reaching into the most intimate and insidious fault lines. The film, which competed for ZFF’s Golden Pram last year, is directed by acclaimed Palestinian filmmaker and visual artist Scandar Copti, whose debut feature Ajami (co-directed with Yaron Shani, 2009) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Norwegian director and writer Dag Johan Haugerud (Beware of Children – ZFF 2019) returns to the festival this year with his latest work, presented in the Together Again program. Dreams, winner of this year’s Berlinale, is the third instalment in his trilogy alongside Sex and Love (ZFF 2024). This tender, fresh blend of a coming-of-age story and a transgenerational family drama – centred on a teenage girl who falls in love with her new teacher – also serves as a tribute to the pleasures of literature and the art of storytelling.

Following the award-winning My Life as a Zucchini (ZFF 2016), Swiss filmmaker Claude Barras teams up once again with French coming-of-age specialist Céline Sciamma to deliver a new and deeply moving animated tale. Savages, as part of ZFF’s KinoKino program for the youngest audiences, transports viewers to the depths of the Borneo rainforest, where a group of locals led by young Kéria fights to save their home from deforestation. Carrying a powerful ecological message, Savages, like Barras’ previous Oscar-nominated film, is crafted in stop-motion animation.

Co-produced with Croatia (Nukleus Film), the introspective, self-reflexive How Come It’s All Green Out Here? Uses a personal story with autobiographical elements to explore the complex legacy of the post-Yugoslav reality – a theme director Nikola Ležaić had already outlined in his acclaimed debut Tilva Rosh (ZFF 2010). Winner of three Golden Arenas in the minority co-production category at the Pula Film Festival, How Come It’s All Green Out Here? Will compete for the Golden Pram at this year’s ZFF.

The jury for the Best Feature Film Award will include German film critic producer Meinolf Zurhort; Italian film curator and producer Nicola Marzano, longtime head of the film department at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA); and Bosnian director Una Gunjak (Excursion – ZFF 2023), whose short film The Chicken won the prestigious European Film Award in 2014. As part of this year’s ZFF, Gunjak will also give a masterclass on her filmmaking poetics, with a special focus on working with children and non-professional actors.

The Golden Pram Award in the International Short Film Competition and the Croatian short film program Checkers will be decided by filmmaker Sara Alavanić, last year’s Checkers laureate; Bård Ydén, director of the Oslo/Fusion International Film Festival; and award-winning Croatian documentarian Ivan Ramljak, one of the short film selectors at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The Golden Bicycle Award, presented in the Together Again program, which showcases new works by filmmakers well-known to the ZFF audience, will be decided by producer Tina Tišljar, director Bruno Anković (Celebration – ZFF 2024), and writer, screenwriter, and filmmaker Dora Šustić.

The Zagreb Film Festival will be held from November 10 to 16 with the support of the Zagreb City Office for Culture, Intercity and International Cooperation and Civil Society, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Creative Europe – MEDIA sub-programme, the Kultura nova Foundation, and the Zagreb Tourist Board.