Ivo Škrabalo was born on 19 February 1934 in Sombor (Vojvodina, Serbia) and lived in Zagreb since 1952, where he graduated from the Faculty of Law and obtained a master’s degree in international law. He graduated film directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He worked as a screenwriter at Zagreb film (1958-1962) and Jadran film (1964-1967), and from 1969 performed the duty of film programme consultant at Croatia film.

He directed several short films and won the Golden Medal Belgrade at the Festival of Documentary and Short Film in Belgrade in 1983 for the screenplay and text of the film Živuće fotografije - slike iz prošlosti filma u Hrvatskoj (Living Photographs – Pictures from the Past of Croatian Film) (1983), directed by Mladen Juranić, for whom he also wrote the script for Škola narodnog zdravlja (The School of Public Health) (1984).

He collaborated on Encyclopaedia of Film published by the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography in Zagreb, and the Croatian Lexicon of Biographies. As a Croatian film historian, he was equally involved in our national film past and future, tackling the issue in written form three times.

The first time was in the 1980s, in his book Između publike i države (Between Audience and State) (1985), when Croatian film still took part in the Yugoslavian cinema; for the second time it happened in the 1990s when his book 101 godina filma u Hrvatskoj 1896.-1997 (101 Years of Film in Croatia 1896 - 1997) tackled the difficulties of post-communist transition; and finally, nearing the end of the first decade of the new millennium, when the world began to acknowledge the new Croatian film, in his book Hrvatska filmska povijest ukratko 1896. - 2006. (Croatian Film History In Short 1896-2006), published in 2008. In the book Dvanaest filmskih portreta (Twelve Film Portraits) (2006) he made a selection of his essays on Croatian filmmakers.

In the 1990s he became actively involved in politics and spent several terms of office as an MP of HSLS and LIBRA (liberal parties) and was the vice-president of the liberal, democratic and reformer group in the Council of Europe assembly.

Ivo Škrabalo was the torchbearer of the Croatian film foundation and institute and the main ally in the establishment of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre. All until the very end he was a friend and counsellor on all things related to the civil and democratic transformation of our cinema.

The wider public will remember him by the inspired film reviews and articles he published in numerous newspapers and magazines in Zagreb and Belgrade. The departure of Ivo Škrabalo is a great loss for Croatia, Croatian film and film culture.