Croatian films will be featured in the Main Competition and will include Snježana Tribuson’s All the Best, winner of four Golden Arenas at the recently held Pula Film Festival, and the minority co-production A Good Wife by Mirjana Karanović, who also won in Pula, taking home the Golden Arena for Best Film. Accompanying these feature films, Motovun Shorts will feature Sunday by Goran Dević and No Man’s Land by Branko Ištvančić, while the non-competition programme ‘Croatia, In Short!’ will screen Flowers by Judita Gamulin, Playing the Tiger by Jasna Nanut, Picnic by Jure Pavlović, The Vast Landscape – Porcelain Stories by Lea Vidaković, The Beast by Daina O. Pusić, Vanishing by Anđelo Jurkas and Days by Zoran Stojkovski.

The Main Programme will also feature fifteen premieres including Gimme Danger, a new documentary by director Jim Jarmusch about the career, music and phenomenon known as The Stooges, whose singer, Iggy Pop, is known as one of the greatest rockstars and most charismatic leads of all time. Fans of the humorous side of the misanthropic great Bruno Dumont will enjoy the premiere of his new dark comedy Slack Bay. The parade of nightmarish characters, played by France’s “A-List” stars, including Juliette Binoche, perform a hilarious circus from the start of the 20th century. The programme also includes the Berlinale winner Fire at Sea, as well as the premiere of the indie-hit Tangerine, which was filmed in entirety with a mobile phone. The Main Programme will also feature the winner of the François Chalais Award in Cannes The Student, the American film Certain Women starring Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart, as well as the premiere of Argentina’s Oscar Award candidate The Clan, a film that tells a terrifying story based on true crimes of professional kidnapping families.

The first evening of the 19th Motovun Film Festival, July 26th, will be highlighted with the comedy-drama Tangerine (USA, 2015), by Sean Baker, and the festival will close with the humorous drama Perfect Strangers (Italy, 2016), by renowned director Paolo Genovese, which won Best Screenplay at the Tribeca Film Festival.

After France, this year’s partner is Bella Italia with three special programmes. ‘I Grandi Maestri’ will feature five of the best Italian directors today. ‘Il Mezzogiorno’ will screen films from the very South of ‘the Boot’, and ‘Commedia All’ Italiana’ will have audiences laughing until they cry. Screening recent projects of Italian cinematography, like this year’s incredibly successful La Pazza Gioia, the programme will also feature Fellini’s ultimate classic Amarcord, a film that generations grew up with and is just as funny today as it was when first released.

The theme of the programme ‘Where Were You in 2016?’ is the rise of the right in Central European states. From festival successes such as Germany’s We Are Young. We Are Strong and Greece’s Fascism Inc. which discuss the new fascistisation of society, to the disturbing Russian-Israeli documentary Credit for Murder, which explores the consequences of ignoring this social trend, this programme is Motovun’s contribution to the current discussion on whether antifascism is a platitude.

After the screenings the fun moves to the stage where visitors of the Motovun Film Festival will enjoy concerts by Bosnian and Herzegovinian rapper Edo Majka and Italy’s red hot ethno band Kalàscima. Also taking the stage will be Kawasaki 3P, Jonathan, Nipplepeople and Filip Motovunski. 

All other details can be found on the MFF’s official website. 

Cover photos: Motovun Film Festival; Milena Zajović and Igor Mirković (*photo credit: Nina Đurđević)