The international feature film competition of the Trieste Film Festival taking place from January 18th to 25th, will include two minority Croatian co-productions: Erased by Miha Mazzini and The Load by Ognjen Glavonić (the Croatian co-producer for both films is Kinorama). 

The international documentary film competition will also include minority Croatian co-productions: Chris the Swiss by Anja Kofmel (Croatian co-producer – Nukleus Film) and The Most Beautiful Country in the World by Želimir Žilnik (Croatian co-producer – Factum).

Andrej Rehak’s animated film Bobo (producer – Zagreb Film) will screen in the short film competition.

The independent Italian film competition will include the minority Croatian co-production Likemeback by Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli (Croatian co-producer: Antitalent).

Nebojša Slijepčević’s film Srbenka (producer – Restart) will screen in the documentary programme out of competition.

Igor Bezinović’s film Cartolina de Momjan, which will have its world premiere in Trieste, is produced by Studio Pangolin and will screen out of competition. Also screening out-of-competition is Joško Marušić’s short film Euthanasia, produced by Zagreb Film.

The Art & Sound programme, geared toward works that are ‘somewhere in between film and contemporary art’, will screen the animated minority Croatian co-production The Final Adventure of Kaktus Kid by Đorđe Marković (Croatian co-producer – Nukleus Film).

Zrinko Ogresta’s film Fragments will screen in the programme featuring the best Central and Eastern European films that have previously screened at the Trieste Film Festival. Ogresta will also be participating in a round-table discussion on February 23rd.

The festival in Trieste will also include the international premiere of Oscar award-winning director Danis Tanović’s series Success, the first original HBO Europe series produced in our region and almost entirely filmed on location in Zagreb. The show is written is Marjan Alčevski. The series was filmed with the help of incentives from the Croatian Audiovisual Centre in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture.

More details are available on the festival’s official website.

Bigger than Trauma at When East Meets West co-production market

The When East Meets West co-production market will be organised during the festival and will run from January 20th to 22nd. The market will include feature and documentary film projects in development. Included in the 22 projects from 14 countries is one Croatian production. The documentary film Bigger than Trauma is directed by Vedrana Pribačić and produced by Metar60 and Slavica Film, and supported by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre. The film is written by Vedrana Pribačić and Mirta Puhlovski who, alongside with Srđan Šarenac, is the project’s producer.

Bigger than Trauma documents the process of healing from rape trauma during the Homeland War. The victims undergo non-institutional therapy through the ‘I am more than my trauma’ programme. They try to restore the dignity and faith they lost twenty years earlier during the war. Through systematic-integrative support methods these women work on creating new relationships with themselves, as well as encouraging self-recognition, as well as recognising themselves within their relationships to their surroundings. Through these unconventional treatments, the film also follows the fates of each of the six women in the programme, and everything that happens around them.

WEMW gathers more than 450 film professionals from over 35 countries with a special emphasis on focus countries and regions. This year they include Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine) and the Benelux region (Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands). The programme consists of a pitching forum for projects in development, as well as a series of individual meetings, panel discussions and lectures. Selected projects also compete for a number of cash prizes. The main goal is to offer participants insight into the film industries of focus of countries and find suitable partners for their projects.

Cover photos: scenes from Bobo; Erased; The Load; Chris the Swiss