In light of the constant rise of coronavirus infected and with the goal of preserving the audience’s and festival crew’s health, Zagreb Film Festival will be held entirely online, on kinoeuropa.hr and croatian.film platforms.

Preparing for the festival, we wrote a couple of scenarios for ourselves, which we, like an unhappy director, changed, amended, and modified in accordance with new circumstances, rearranging the festival in different combinations between online and offline versions, and all of it so we, as true lovers of film art, could show the films where they belong – on the big screen.

Following the developments and being witness to a difficult situation in which our healthcare system is, we made the decision that we do not want, in any circumstances, to jeopardize the health of our audience and festival crew. We’ve faced a number of challenges from the start. This one might be our biggest yet. But I firmly believe that we’ll celebrate film as it deserves – with authors there, physically close to each other, talking and partying, said the Zagreb Film Festival director, Boris T. Matić.

The 18th Zagreb Film Festival will be held at previously established dates, from November 8th to 15th. Films from the main program – the feature and short competition program and from the Together Again program, as well as from the Great 5 and Festivals in the Spotlight will be shown on kinoeuropa.hr, and the competition program for domestic short films, Checkers, will be available on croatian.film platform. We’ll also hold the INDUSTRY program online, dedicated to film professionals and interested audience.

In the main program of feature films, we’ll see the already revealed films, an award-winner from Venice, Serbian film Oasis by Ivan Ikić, and Polish film Sweat, an interesting character study of a super-successful trainer by Magnus von Horn. Together Again brings us films from Rúnar Rúnarsson (Echo) and Radu Jude (Uppercase Print), and The Great 5 contributions from the largest European cinema makers, new films by Christian Petzold (Undine), Gabriele Muccino (The Best Years) and Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Madre).

The complete competition and side program of the 18th Zagreb Film Festival will be announced on November 3rd.

Ambiance from previous edition