A new generation of authors is currently at the forefront of Croatian filmmaking – as many as eight feature film titles have been made by debut authors. The aim of the campaign “Discover Our New Film” is to bring these works closer to domestic audiences, highlighting the richness and diversity of the current production and encouraging them to pick the titles most suited to their tastes and affinities. Each of the titles is unique, boasting a range of topics and approaches, strong authorial visions, along with a variety of poetics and visual styles and convincing acting performances.

Even Pigs Go to Heaven hit the cinemas on 22nd September, while the theatrical distribution of the other titles in the batch is scheduled for the upcoming weeks and months. Before that, four titles (Safe Place, Carbide, The Uncle and Traces) will have their Croatian premiere screenings at the 20th edition of the Zagreb Film Festival, followed by a regular cinema distribution.

Even Pigs Go to Heaven is a comedy created by renowned director Goran Dukić (Wristcutters) and screenwriter Sandra Antolić, produced by Nina Petrović for the company Švenk. The film is an homage of sorts to the northern region of Croatia, Hrvatsko Zagorje, and the first feature film done in the kajkavian dialect in over fifty years. It stars Nataša Dorčić and Tesa Litvan, alongside Pjer Meničanin, Ljubo Zečević, Areta Ćurković, Dora Polić Vitez, Ljubomir Kerekeš and others. The audience voted it the best film at this year’s Pula Film Festival, while its cinema run started on 22nd September with a tour of the towns in Zagorje. The film has already sold more than 5 thousand tickets.

Illyricvm is the first feature film by the author of experimental and animated films, Simon Bogojević Narath. The historical epic drama that was eight years in the making is an extremely demanding film project, which included the participation of more than thirty actors and one hundred and fifty film workers. It was produced by Ankica Jurić Tilić for Kinorama. It is the first film in the world shot in Illyrian and the first Croatian film in Latin. Starring in the film are Filip Križan, Ylber Bardhi, Robert Prebil, Adrian Pezdirc, Ilir Prapashtica, Ana Takač, Franjo Dijak and others, while Illyricvm hits the cinemas on 13th October.

The extraordinary success of Safe Place, directed by Juraj Lerotić and produced by Miljenka Čogelja (for Pipser) rounds off a series of recent accolades for Croatian film. Safe Place has garnered awards for best emerging director, best actor (Goran Marković), and best first feature at the Locarno Film Festival, thus becoming the first Croatian film in the past 30 years to win three major awards at an A-list festival. This was followed by the Sarajevo FF where it again won big, scooping up two Hear of Sarajevo awards (for best film and best male performance for Lerotić), as well as taking home the CICAE and Cineuropa awards. This authentic and emotionally charged drama is based on autobiographical motifs from the director’s life, centring on the fissures that appear in the daily life of a three-member family caused by a suicide attempt. The plot is reduced to the most succinct – saving a loved one. In addition to Lerotić, the film also stars Goran Marković and Snježana Sinovčić-Šiškov. Safe Place, this year’s Croatian Oscar entry, starts its theatrical run on 3rd November.

Renowned Croatian director Eduard Galić has made a film about the fall of Vukovar, produced by artistic organisation MissArt and producer Dominik Galić. Sixth Bus centres on the mysterious disappearance of the so-called sixth bus, which had captured Croatian soldiers and casualties from the Vukovar hospital aboard, the fate of which remains unknown even after almost 30 years. The cast of this harrowing drama is led by Marko Petrić and Zala Đurić, alongside Rade Vulin, Živko Anočić, Pavle Matuško and Ozren Grabarić. Sixth Bus arrives at cinemas on 17th November, coinciding with the anniversary of the fall of Vukovar.

Josip Žuvan’s debut feature Carbide recently premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, making it the first Croatian film in 15 years to screen at this prestigious festival. A Maxima Film production, produced by Damir Terešak, Carbide is a story about friendship between two boys from feuding families living in a dirt-road village. The cast is led by young actors Mauro Ercegović Gracin and Franko Floigl, with Ivana Roščić, Marija Škaričić, Ljubomir Bandović, Asja Jovanović and Zdenko Jelčić appearing in the other roles. The film will appear on the cinema repertoire in late November.

The Uncle, directing duo Andrija Mardešić and David Kapac’ feature debut is a thriller drama with elements of the absurd. It screened at this year’s Karlovy Vary IFF in the Proxima program, receiving a special jury mention, followed by the Golden Arena for Best Script at the Pula film Festival. The critics have hailed it as a highly unconventional genre film imbued with a bizarre atmosphere, telling a story about an uncle from Germany who comes home for the holidays and forces a family to recreate Christmas Eve, day after day. The eponymous lead character is played by legendary Serbian actor Predrag Miki Manojlović, alongside Ivana Roščić, Goran Bogdan and Roko Sikavica. The Uncle is an Eclectica production, produced by Ivan Kelava and Tomislav Vujić. It hits the cinema just in time for the holiday season, on 1st December.

The first Croatian 3D animated feature Cricket & Antoinette will finally see the light of day after 12 years in the making. It is a Diedra production, produced by Dino Krpan and directed by Luka Rukavina. The story written by Darko Bakliža is an adaptation of sorts of Aesop’s fable to modern times promoting tolerance and co-existence through a tale of Ket, the cricket and Antoinette who try to bring together two disparate worldviews. Thara Thaller and Marko Petrić lend voices to the titular characters, while the film will appear in Croatian cinemas on 8th December.

In addition to these seven titles, three more films will start their theatrical distribution in early 2023. The Head of a Big Fish is a feature debut directed by journalist and director Arsen Oremović, based on the motifs from the eponymous novel written by Ognjen Sviličić, produced by Maja Vukić and Katarina Prpić for company Izazov 365. The drama film dissects interpersonal relationships in a post-transitional society that has engendered, according to the author, those suffering from the PTSD of war and the PTSD of peace. Starring in the film are Lana Barić (Golden Arena for best female performance), Nikša Butijer and Neven Aljinović - Tot.

Communication, or its avoidance, is at the heart of High on Life, a debut feature directed by Radislav Jovanov Gonzo, a successful cinematographer and music video director. High on Life is hailed as a bittersweet dramedy that follows the reunion of a long-disbanded group of friends after the sudden death of one of them. Despite mutual grievances and secrets from the past, the wake become an occasion for fun and evoking memories. The film was produced by Fade In, in co-production with Propeller Film, and the producer is Sabina Krešić. Starring Aleksandra Naumov, Judita Franković Brdar, Krešimir Mikić, Rakan Rushaidat and Hrvoje Barišić.

The only female author on this list is Dubravka Turić. Her long-awaited feature debut Traces (a Kinorama production, producer Ankica Jurić Tilić) will have its world premiere in October, at the 38th Warsaw Film Festival. The film centres on a scientist whose anthropological research of symbols and engravings on tombstones confronts her with major life changes and insights into the unyielding human desire for communication, affirmation and leaving a mark in the world. Alongside Marija Škaričić, the film stars Nikša Butijer, Mate Gulin, Lana Barić and Tvrtko Jurić.

In spring of 2023, at least four more films will appear before Croatian audiences; two are debuts by authors from Pula – Pula, a debut by renowned filmmaker Andrej Korovljev, based on the novel written by Vladimir Stojsavljević and a Kinematograf production, as well as The Pelican, a debut by young Pula director Filip Heraković, created as a Wolfgang&Dolly production. Diary of Pauline P. is a children’s film based on the popular children’s book written by Sanja Polak, directed by Neven Hitrec, while narrative feature The Death of the Little Match Girl directed by Goran Kulenović is based on the eponymous book written by Zoran Ferić.

More information about the films on this list is available at www.havc.hr/otkrij-nas-novi-film/.

A selection of photographs from the campaign event is available on THIS link. Photograph authors are John Pavlish and Nina Đurđević.

Record success of Croatian film in 2021 and 2022

In the past two years, domestic films achieved extraordinary success on the international festival scene. The year 2021 is certainly among the most successful in the past period, if not the most significant year in the history of Croatian cinematography. Namely, last year Croatian titles recorded over 300 screenings at international festivals, including the three biggest ones (Berlin, Cannes, Venice), receiving dozens of awards.

Films that took home the greatest number of awards in 2021 were Marko Dješka’s animated short All Those Sensations in My Belly, which appeared at 88 festivals and won 16 awards, and the fiction feature Murina, directed by Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, which premiered at Cannes, winning the prestigious Camera d'Or, going on to appear at 38 other festivals and winning 10 more awards. For the first time, a TV series – The Last Socialist Artefact created by Dalibor Matanić and Ankica Jurić Tilić, was also awarded, at that, at the most important TV series festival Series Mania in Lille.

So far in 2022, over 80 Croatian films have appeared at over 60 festivals. Among A-list festivals, these were: Rotterdam International Film Festival (Places We'll Breathe), Berlinale (Gracija Filipović was included in the European Shooting Stars programme), Hot Docs international documentary festival (Bigger Than Trauma, Museum of the Revolution), Oberhausen Short Film Festival (3rd Cinematic Nail Factory, While We Were Here, The Raft, Bonding Humanity), Cannes Film Festival – in the programme Un Certain Regard (Butterfly Vision, Burning Days), Karlovy Vary IFF – in the Proxima programme (The Uncle), Locarno FF – the Concorso Cineasti del presente competition (Safe Place) and the youth film competition (How I Learned to Fly), Venice Film Festival (H8, competition programme Horizons – The Happiest Man in the World), Venice International Critics’ Week (Have You Seen This Woman?), Toronto IFF (The Happiest Man in the World), San Sebastian IFF – in the New Directors programme (Carbide).