This Sunday, 23 October, Zagreb autumn will once again be lit with the silver film glow — the anniversary edition of the Zagreb Film Festival opens in SC Cinema. This year’s 8 days of ZFF will present 115 films from all over the world in 11 programs and host numerous prominent regional and international filmmakers.

The focus of the main program is, as always, on debut and second films of authors from around the world, and this birthday edition is special thanks to a record number of local authors’ debuts. The Croatian premiere of Safe Place by Juraj Lerotić will open the festival at 8 PM in SC Cinema, alongside the director and film crew. From Tuesday to Thursday in the afternoon (1 PM) and evening (9 PM), we will screen premieres of domestic films: Carbide by Josip Žuvan, Traces by Dubravka Turić and The Uncle by directors Kapac and Mardešić which will be presented to the audience by the authors themselves.

ZFF will bring a host of relevant names to Zagreb, from editor Cristiano Travaglioli, winner of the European Oscar behind Paolo Sorrentino’s masterpieces, and Zlatko Burić, the Croatian-Danish actor (Pusher, Dirty Pretty Things, Quit Staring at My Plate, Triangle of Sadness), who will hold masterclass lectures, to Colm Bairéad, the Irish director who will present his debut film The Quiet Girl, an Irish language classical story which already melted many hearts.

International guests will be joined by numerous regional and Croatian authors, actors and professionals, such as the Macedonian director Teona Struga Mitevska (The Happiest Man in the World), director from Bosnia and Herzegovina Pjer Žalica (May Labour Day), whose film Fuse opened the first edition of Zagreb Film Festival 20 years ago, Miki Manojlović (The Uncle), Ksenija Marinković, Marija Škaričić (Traces), Ivana Roščić (The Uncle, Carbide), Goran Marković  and Snježana Sinovčić (Safe Place) and many others.

This year’s ZFF is a place where everyone will be able to find a film for themselves, from the revised story about the Empress Sisi (Corsage) and literary meditation on friendship (The Eight Mountains), to queer films, such as the Pakistani Oscar candidate Joyland and drama Wet Sand. European film lovers will be thrilled with ZFF’s program Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region which brings four films with peculiar and fresh stories to the Museum of Contemporary Art and online, from the fantastic bitter-sweet Romanian satire Întregalde by Radu Muntean which questions the limits of human kindness, to the charming Portuguese film about growing up, witchcraft and mourning Alma Viva.

The competition program of Zagreb Film Festival ends on Saturday with an awards ceremony and the screening of the award-winning film from Cannes, Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Östlund, while film screenings continue on Sunday, October 30. The festival will be held at five locations: in Tuškanac Cinema, SC Cinema, Kinoteka Cinema, and Dokukino KIC, as well as online platforms kinoeuropa.hr and croatian.film.

Zagreb Film Festival is financially supported by the City Office for Culture, International Relations and Civil Society, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Creative Europe – MEDIA sub-programme and the Zagreb Tourist Board. The festival’s main sponsor is INA.