This year’s 30th edition of the Busan International Film Festival will run from 17 to 26 September. The festival showcases 241 titles from 64 countries, while director and screenwriter Hana Jušić’ feature God Will Not Help will have its Asian premiere in the World Cinema section. World Cinema presents a cross-section of recent cinema from across the globe, with works by established directors and upcoming authors, as well as award-winning films from prestigious international festivals.

God Will Not Help had its world premiere at the 78th Locarno Film Festival, while lead actresses Manuela Martelli and Ana Marija Veselčić took home the Leopard (Pardo) Award for Best Actress in the Concorso Internazionale main competition programme. Subsequently, the film had its regional premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where it won the Special Award for the Promotion of Gender Equality.

With Kinorama as the main producer, God Will Not Help is a co-production between companies Nightswim (Italy), Micro Film (Romania), Horsefly Films (Greece), Maneki Films (France), Perfo Production (Slovenia) and ERT S.A. (Greece), and co-producers Ada Solomon, Diana Caravia, Ines Vasiljević, Stefano Sardo, Yorgos Tsourgiannis, Didar Domehri, Aleš Pavlin and Andrej Štritof.

After South Korea, the film will travel to Canada to the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it will have its North American premiere, as part of the Vanguard programme.

The same programme will also present to the Canadian audience two minority Croatian co-productions. These are Little Trouble Girls by Urška Djukić and Wind, Talk to Me directed by Stefan Đorđević.

The title Little Trouble Girls had its world premiere in the Perspectives competition at the 75th Berlinale, and its North American premiere at the 24th Tribeca Film Festival. The film was made in co-production with Croatian company 365 Films of co-producer Katarina Prpić.

Wind, Talk to Me directed by Stefan Đorđević won the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Film at the Sarajevo Film Festival, and had its world premiere at the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam. The co-producer of the film is Vanja Jambrović in front of Restart, while Croatian crew members that worked on the film include Tomislav Stojanović as an editor, Ivan Judaš as composer, and VFX master Sandrino Požežanac.  

The Spectrum programme showcases innovative, non-fictional works, so it will also present Croatia’s Oscar contender as well as Croatia’s Goya Awards runner, Fiume o Morte! by Igor Bezinović.

Fiume o morte! had its world premiere at the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it won the festival’s main Tiger Award and the FIPRESCI Prize. Since then, it has travelled the world from Australia, across Taiwan, all the way to Mexico, screening at New York’s MoMA, being selected for as many as 40 festivals around the world, winning numerous awards, and it also took home as many as six Golden Arenas at this year’s Pula Film Festival. Some of the latest accolades include the award for Best Film in the Newcomers competition at the recently concluded MakeDox, and being selected as the Best Documentary at this year’s Vukovar Film Festival. Moreover, ICA Cinema recently acquired distribution rights for the documentary for screening in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The film was produced by Restart, with producers Vanja Jambrović and Tibor Keser, in co-production with companies Nosorogi from Slovenia (co-produced Marina Gumzi) and Videomante from Italy (co-produced Erica Barbiani).

The Vancouver International Festival, whose 44th edition takes place from 2 to 12 October 2025, is one of the largest and oldest festivals in North America, annually presenting more than 300 titles from close to a hundred countries from around the world.