The writer-director and winner of the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at last year’s Cannes Film Festival with his drama short The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, this year joins the international jury panel deciding on the best titles in the Short Film and La Cinef competitions.

The short film jury is chaired by German director, screenwriter, and producer Maren Ade, while, in addition to Nebojša Slijepčević, the jury will include screenwriter and producer Reinaldo Marcus Green, actress and singer-songwriter Camélia Jordana, photographer, and former director of the Spanish Cinematheque, José María Prado Garcia.

This jury will decide which title from the short film competition will receive the Palme d'Or, and will also award three prizes in the student competition La Cinef.

The latter programme will also include the short Ether, produced by the National Film and Television School in London, directed by Vida Skerk, a former student at the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art. The lead role is played actress Laura Anić-Kaliger, another former ADU student.

Slijepčević’s short film The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent was a momentous success, winning the Palme d'Or in Cannes, the French César Award, the European Film Award and an Oscar nomination. The film was produced by Croatian company Antitalent, in co-production with Bulgaria (Contrast Films), France (Les Films Norfolk) and Slovenia (Studio Virc) with producers Katarina Prpić and Danijel Pek.

Film manager, selector for various film festivals, and director of acquisitions for the film streaming service and distributor MUBI, Vanja Kaluđerčić, a Croatia native, who has been the director of the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam since 2019, is a member of the jury of Un Certain Regard. The jury is chaired by British screenwriter and director of photography Molly Manning Walker. Alongside them, the jury also includes French-Swiss director and screenwriter Louise Courvoisier, Italian director, producer and screenwriter Roberto Minervini and Argentine actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart. This jury will award prizes in the programme Un Certain Regard, traditionally dedicated to the works of young authors, this year featuring 20 films running for awards, including nine debuts. 

Producers on the Move 

The organisation European Film Promotion has selected Croatian producer Tamara Babun Zovko to participate in the 26th edition of the platform Producers on the Move.

The European Film Promotion, which brings together 37 European national film centres and promotion agencies, each year selects 20 promising producers to participate in the Producers on the Move platform, based on their previous project track record and successful international co-productions.

According to the EFP, Tamara Babun Zovko has been selected to participate in the programme thanks to her accomplished production catalogue, as well as her work on Filip Heraković’s fiction feature Pelican, which screened in the First Feature Competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, where Heraković received the Special Jury Prize for Directing.

This year, Producers on the Move will be held in hybrid format, as a combination of online sessions prior to the Cannes Film Festival, from 28 to 30 April, and during the festival itself, from 16 to 20 May. Participants take part in lectures, workshops, pitching sessions and one-on-one meetings with industry experts, which also opens up promotion opportunities in international industry publications.

Marché du Film

Short Film Corner / Rendez-vous Industry

The SFC | Rendez-vous Industry is a forum dedicated to filmmakers working with short formats and takes place during the Cannes Film Festival. It is a non-competitive industry section aimed at networking, and runs 18 to 21 May.

Director Tonći Gaćina will present his projects Goats! in Focus WiP, the section for projects in development. The producer of the project is Tibor Keser for KOMPOT, with editor Dora Slakoper. The project has so far been supported by the County of Istria and the City of Rijeka. 

Goats! is a short observational documentary portraying the life of goats that walk freely in the wilderness of the Croatian offshore island of Unije. After the collapse of the local livestock project, several hundreds of these animals were left to roam freely on the island, which the islanders are finding it difficult to cope with now.  

New Producers Room 

The New Producers Room is a platform taking place as part of the Short Film Corner / Rendez-vous Industry, with the aim of highlighting up-and-coming young production talents and offering them a space to explore co-production possibilities and create strong connections for the future. Each year, the New Producers Room selects ten participants from all over the world, who get to learn more about co-production opportunities, exchange experiences and develop professional contacts through online workshops and events in Cannes.

One of these participants is producer and playwright Veronika Milinović from the Blank Film Incubator.

Milinović completed her undergraduate production degree in 2022 at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Before graduating, she worked on several dozen student, amateur and professional shorts as a producer, executive producer, and production assistant. After graduating from the Academy, she continued her career in the production sector working on feature films (domestic and foreign) and documentary television series. She has been an active member of the association Blank Film Incubator for ten years, and is currently looking forward to getting back to creative short fiction forms and strengthening an international network for the development and distribution of shorts produced by the Blank Film Incubator.

Film Talent Academy

Launched in 2022, the Talent Academy of the Linz International Short Film Festival (ISFF) is dedicated to nurturing emerging filmmakers and providing them with the resources, mentorship, and exposure necessary to succeed in the film industry.

One of the six participants is Croatian director and screenwriter Sara Jurinčić (Short Film Lab). The Talent Academy provides participants with a four-day residency in Cannes, culminating in project presentation at the Film Market, at a pitching event organised especially for Talent Academy attendees. Jurinčić will present her experimental documentary project Closing Time, tackling the issues of inequality of immigrant workers and their precarious position in foreign countries. The producer of the future film is Vanja Jambrović (Restart).

Fantastic 7

Organised by the Sitges Film Festival and the Marché du Film, Fantastic 7 is an event celebrating genre-bending films from around the world and it is designed to connect emerging filmmakers with potential business partners for co-production opportunities. The projects to be presented in Cannes have been selected by festivals forming part of the Fantastic 7 initiative, including the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which has selected for this occasion the feature film project The Last Moon.

The Last Moon is a real-time supernatural thriller-drama. One night during a full moon, Max (35) summons his estranged brother Fred (31) to their family home in the outback to tell him that he has been attacked by a werewolf. Max believes that at midnight he will turn into a beast and kill his wife and daughter. Fred believes that Max has inherited the family curse of schizophrenia and does his best to save him from delusions. As tensions rise, Fred’s wife appears, leading to a shocking denouement to their unexpected reunion.

The project in development is a Croatian minority co-production, with co-producer Stjepan Hundić for company Robot 22. The director and screenwriter of the film is Sean McConville. The project, developed under the auspices of the London-based production company Frenzy Films, has so far been presented and developed at many international platforms such as the European Genre Forum, BIF Market (BIFFF), the London Film Festival Fair, the Frontières Forum of the Belgian Fantasia Festival…