This year’s 20^th Zagreb Film Festival will be held 23^rd – 30^th October and traditionally its competition program will feature films by new international and domestic authors.

The call for film entries for ZFF’s competition program is now open; the deadline for submissions is 10^thAugust for the international feature and short competitions and 12^th September for the Croatian short film competition – the Checkers program. The films in all three main competitions enter the running for the Golden Pram Award and other cash prizes.

Film Submission Guidelines and Online Application Form are available on the following link.

Since its very beginnings, in terms of programming, the Zagreb Film Festival has been focused on presenting and promoting debut films and new authors. Over the years, its main festival program has featured directors the likes of Anton Corbijn, Steve McQueen, Radu Jude, Xavier Dolan, Andrey Zvyagintsev and Sophia Coppola. The Checkers competition has announced and presented to a wider audience up-and-coming directors on the domestic filmmaking scene, who went on to earn recognition not only in the country, but also on the international festival circuit (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Juraj Lerotić, Hana Jušić, Sonja Tarokić, Dubravka Turić  and others).

Once again this year, in addition to the main competition program, the audience will be able to enjoy several tried and true, as well as some new programs, while the Industry section, devoted to the educational and practical side of filmmaking, will offer a series of workshops, lectures, panel discussions and other content for film professionals, young filmmakers and anyone interested in different aspects of film production.

The workshop My First Film will be held as part of the Industry section for the eleventh consecutive year – the applications for which are now open. The workshop is aimed at directors working on the script for their first fiction feature film. The submission deadline is 30^th June, 2022.   

Among submitted applications, six participants will be selected, of which two from Croatia and four from Europe. The workshop will take place during the 20^th edition of the Zagreb Film Festival.

The aim of the workshop is to provide assistance to young authors working on the script for their first fiction feature, under the mentorship of two script doctors. Through an intense practical program, with an emphasis on working through problem areas in a group, young colleagues will be encouraged to successfully complete their scripts in a relaxed working atmosphere.

The workshop is free for all participants, while more information on the call for applications can be found here.

The workshop is organised jointly by ZFF and the Croatian Film Directors’ Guild. Throughout the previous ten editions of the workshop, a total of 54 projects from different European countries took part in the workshop, 19 of which were Croatian authors with projects on their way to completion. Four films developed at the workshop, The Frog by Elmir Jukić, The Diary of Diana B. by Dana Budisavljević, The Load by Ognjen Glavonić and Staffroom by Sonja Tarokić, have already screened in ZFF program.

We wish all the projects in production, post-production or awaiting their first encounter with the audience much luck and look forward to the upcoming submissions for the 11^th edition of the workshop My First Script.

The Festival is supported by the Zagreb City Office for Culture, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Creative Europe MEDIA sub-programme and Zagreb Tourist Board.

Festival main sponsor is INA.