Discoveries from Croatia World Cinema

Documentary about the life and work of Oliver Dragojević, famous Croatian singer.

Miranda prepares for her mother's arrival. While preparing, she is interrupted by a small Beast from whom Miranda really wants to escape. Realizing that he cannot escape, he decides to hide from the Beast and hopes that his mother will not notice. Miranda will have to face her aggressive mother and herself.

This film is a collaborative project of members of the artistic group Divlje oko. A register of animation styles snippets of its authors.

After succsesfully disposing of a suspected minefield, a group of disposers must now face their own equally destructive and explosive internal conflicts on the way home.

A series of portraits of people I met through various posts and advertisements in the winter of 2021/2022.

Short animated film.

Croatia Records, as the publishing house that published the largest number of new wave releases, is celebrating 40 years of new wave this year. The anniversary is accompanied by many interesting releases and reissues, and the focus is on four vinyls, pearls of the new wave: the first albums of Električni orgazam and Haustor, the only album of Šarlo akrobata and the "Paket aranžman" compilation, which was responsible for the flourishing of the new wave in the former Yugoslavia. In cooperation with CMC television, a documentary film was filmed with a large number of relevant interlocutors, about one of the most brilliant musical periods in the history of the region.

A short talk on having sex in the woods.

Among the ruins of the cinema of my childhood, I found the remains of a film tape with pieces of films produced by the former state. Decay gave the tape a new quality and created a new aesthetic. The tape has found its way to its audience again. But nothing is the same.

Nena recently started working as a school assistant to seven-year-old Dejan who has learning disabilities. It's one of the first Nena's grown-up jobs, and Dejan is a tough cookie so every day is a new challenge for the two of them. Apart from that, Nena also has to struggle with the rigid school system around them. Things look pretty bleak until one day a fluffy white friend comes to visit.

Police inspector Romano is investigating the kidnapping of a journalist entangling himself into a web of secrets of a business tycoon and the police captain.

The film follows the "history of evil" as a continuity in the history of mankind, from prehistory to the present day, through portraits of historical figures created by the art of sculptor Ante Strinic, based on the script by Tahir Mujičić.

Short animated film about one particular worker of Sisak ironworks.

Croatia has 718 islands and 467 cliffs. 67 islands are inhabited, and only nine of them have direct access to potable water. The remaining islands are dependent on water carrier ships. Our Daily Water is a Mediterranean comedy about one such ship and its crew.

A modern low-budget adaptation of the myth of Sisyphus, made by film students as an school project.

A diary video by Darko Duilo

An idyllic morning. Different things can disturb this. Rush hour, commercials, unreliable devices and drones definitely. How did the final nail get in the coffin in a single day, for quite an ordinary man who only wanted to enjoy his morning?

Conversation between man and woman that leads to some unexpected events.

Goran Dević conducts confessional interviews with three men who were actively involved in the conflict in former Yugoslavia.

A 1996 Croatian language drama film directed by Eduard Galić, starring Vlasta Knezović, Ivo Gregurevic and Edo Perocevic.

The film follows the "history of evil" as a continuity in the history of mankind, from prehistory to the present day, through portraits of historical figures created by the art of sculptor Ante Strinic, based on the script by Tahir Mujičić.

Croatia has 718 islands and 467 cliffs. 67 islands are inhabited, and only nine of them have direct access to potable water. The remaining islands are dependent on water carrier ships. Our Daily Water is a Mediterranean comedy about one such ship and its crew.

After a massive earthquake hits Zagreb, Žana decides to reinvent her life, creating the persona of Eva. However, how will this affect her mental state, friendships and life as she knows it? Or, much like the city around her, will it have to be built anew?

Branko dwells on the fringes of Belgrade society. Isolated and unable to sleep, he speaks to no-one. His only obsession seems to be his younger brother, whose muddy shoes, bloodstained sheets, and murky whereabouts unsettle him. As paranoia sets in, Branko realises his brother isn't the strange one. He is.

At the end of the 19th century, a young man named Poncho travels with his donkey Mago through the wilderness of northern Croatia, carrying goods he intends to sell at a fair. On a forest road, he comes across a cart stuck in the mud and two strangers, Stef and Lujo, who have lost their horses after a night storm. Despite his hesitation, he helps them pull the cart out, setting in motion a series of events that will change the course of his fate.

Portraits and Encounters was a TV Zagreb documentary series created in the period from 1960 to 1971. It portrayed the life and work of the most distinguished Croatian painters, poets, and avant-gardists of the Croatian cultural milieu. Half a century later, the author reconstructs some of the episodes, while the screenwriter Irena Vrkljan meets with the past.

A movie about the Serbian Orthodox Church in Zagreb, Croatia.

A young filmmaker returns home and starts a search for her father, whom she knew only two month and whom no one ever talked about, although he was a famous musician, once even the gituarist of the legendary Parni valjak band. While she is trying to fill the gaps her father left behind, unsolved family issues emerge and she finds out she is pregnant.

Growing up, Željko, Miha and Zvone used to be best friends. However, on the cusp of their adulthood, old feuds and new challenges slowly turn their friendship into a mosaic of burdains and rivalries. As the spring and the caroling season approach their small village, the boys are put to the test which will forever change the course of their relationship.

Large waste consists of objects and things that are unsuitable for collection as mixed municipal waste, due to their size or composition. If large waste is irresponsibly disposed of in nature or at illegal dump sites, everyone pays the cost of its removal.

Moving through a world filled with scanners and surveillance algorithms, while frivolously using different social networks, online forms and credit cards, the man of today gives away his privacy voluntarily. A decent citizen has nothing to hide. Only criminals do.

Kralj and Joke are small time crooks, with their unsuccessful attempts to get rich. They arrive at the small local fair with intention of selling smuggled cigarettes, but they immediately get into trouble. First they got into an argument with an old woman (who calls police) and then they force a group of former drug addicts to give them their booth with souvenirs. Soon, Kralj is caught by police and sentenced to 6 months of prison, while Joke manages to escape. Joke seeks help from a mutual friend Sporki to rescue Kralj, and together they forge a plan that will not go as smoothly as they expected.

This allegorical docufiction provides the viewer with a lightly meditative and at the same time modern impression of the Christian holiday while paying witness to the transformation of the sacral space and the holiday's religious message. The film's anonymous protagonists from opposite sides of the world discuss the paths of their faith in this visually stylized and stylistically edited film.

The war has ended. Villages of Bosnian Croats have been destroyed, and they are living in the homes of the Croatian Serbs. An old man, a Bosnian Croat, disappears. A policeman Filip, himself living in a Serbian home, investigates the case uninterestedly. Through the relationship with his father, Filip tries to understand the motives of the missing old man. As the film moves towards the end, Filip’s investigation becomes more and more personal.

A story of sudden encounters, for one day, Masha, one middle- aged woman,and Danis, one middle-aged man. Two people who once loved, after nine years of painful disagreement, they accidentally encounter and evoke memories.

Three friends suddenly earn a small fortune and it flips their lives upside-down. They have different interests and invest their money in them. Because of that, they find themselves in a series of dangerous situations.

Images that take the viewer to the sea, before dark.

A reply to an earlier work – a radically digressive footnote – and the opening salvo of a new tendency. It is intensely personal and explores the relationship of storytelling to violence, to power, and to memory.

Among the garbage heaps of a big landfill on a Croatian island, Zoki uncovers a microcassette. A close study of the discarded object serves as a tribute to chance and imagination.

A movie about the Serbian Orthodox Church in Zagreb, Croatia.

In a raging nuclear war between the East and the West, a group of three people head on a journey into the forbidden zone.

A short documentary featuring interviews with newspaper vendors in Zagreb.

A family, a nine-year-old child, and an inadequate elementary school curriculum. The child’s work desk becomes the stage for a tragicomic family drama. Who will be the first to break under the burden of “knowledge”? The caring parents or their self-centered offspring?

I walk through empty corridors and dance with the light. I erase myself from every frame and meet all versions of myself. Evanescence is a reflection on death and transience from the point of view of a person remaining behind. It is a film about the search for identity in an ever-changing world, whose future itself is increasingly uncertain. The death enforces the awareness of the inexorable nature of transience. Enfolded by space that is in a state of constant flux, endlessly emerging and disappearing, the author too fluctuates with it.

A girl is drawing; she feels intense back pain and tries to stretch. Despite her efforts, the pain persists, and frustration grows. Her movements become grotesque and increasingly brutal, with her body tightening further. As the pain continues, the girl experiences an emotional breakdown. Completely broken, she sits back at her desk.

Shot within six hours on a single location, this documentary shows us a man who claims he has been detained 78 times which makes him a record-holder in Croatia. In these 78 times in prison, he was convicted only once. The film shows us his aversion against institutions and his peculiar life philosophy.

Thirteen years after the unexpected death of his one time best friend, filmmaker tries to reconstruct his life and their relationship, using just the photographs and video materials which his friend shot back then. A film about the lost generation of Croatian youth in the end of the 90's, who are trying to find their identity in the aftermath of a devastating war.

Two childhood friends face adulthood in different ways. Life is still a game for them – girls, football, parties. But the choices they make will determine the course of their lives and put their friendship to the test. In the Balkans, every generation has their own reasons to leave. This is a story about a generation caught in the transition from socialism to capitalism, marked by a brutal war.

Father and son review the problems in their communication that have been accumulating in years. The son cannot get rid of fears that his life is being a true copy of his father's projections of his future, so he shoots a video letter with his amateur camera in which he tries to make his father look bad and present the evidences that would indicate how he became a much better person than him.

Growing up on an isolated island off the coast of Croatia during the reign of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, young Serafin Skoko's formative years were as repressive as they were lonely.

This comedy shows the events before the Second World War. Master Toza, a rich and prominent merchant, hires judge Andra to teach his daughter Ljubica. Andra is a poor student and SKOJ member, in which he organizes courses on class struggle and other activities with other youths.

Besides presenting a history of the Medveščak Zagreb Ice Hockey Club, the film includes recollections of its crucial individuals, past and present, and tries to explain the phenomenon of its popularity, including the unique spirit of Medveščak fans.

Arthouse drama collage on people who have plenty of time.

Eržika, a young Hungarian woman, applies for a cleaning job in Pakrac, a small town in Croatia. However, unbenkownst to everyone, this seemingly innacuous event will set up a chain of events involving conspiratorial plots, old feuds and even a bit of romance.

Nenad Vižin's violent death was the catalyst for a unique phenomenon in the history of ex-Yugoslavia: 300 citizens of Rijeka signed a petition asking the police and the communist party to take responsibility. The petitioners were submitted to accusations and prosecutions. Although the events surrounding the death itself remain a mystery, it left its mark on a whole generation in Rijeka and is still a part of the social fabric of the city. This film depicts the mechanism of fear as an integral part of political systems and portrays the unique artistic rebellion that occurred in Rijeka in the 1980s as a reaction to fear and powerlessness.

Narrated collection of the greatest Dobrisa Cesaric's poems.

Through a series of interviews with randomly selected parents, Katarina Zrinka Matijević explores the ups and downs of parenthood in the contemporary Balkan sphere, uncovering almost as much about the couples as she does about herself.