Discoveries from Croatia World Cinema

Roko hasn't paid rent in months and now he has less than 24 hours to settle his debt. He will attempt to reach the most painless possible solution through a calm and rational talk with those closest to him.

During the 90's, Croatia suffered systematic destruction of its anti-fascist monuments. By combining the images of these impressive works of abstract sculpture with the potent nature surrounding them, Monument creates powerful visual metaphors.

After finding out that doctors in Croatia cannot help their daughter who is suffering from terminal leukaemia, the parents of five-year-old Nora Šitum see their last hope in an experimental treatment in Philadelphia. They are given just seven days to pay for their daughter’s treatment – which will cost nearly one million dollars.

Planemo is a solitary wanderer, a sentinel of the galaxy. It is an orphaned world, a celestial body booted from its solar system by the chaos of planetary migration. In a society where everyone mindlessly orbits around their daily routines, what happens when a person gets ejected from the system? They might just find themselves rapidly pushed out of the habitable zone.

Three women of different ages and backgrounds meet in the waiting room of an ophthalmologist’s office. Overhearing the conversation of the two older women, the young woman Sasha learns of the tragedy they experienced in the war. The indifference she felt towards them until that moment is replaced by a sense of closeness and connection. However, the chance to share this is irreversibly lost.

Ambiental documentary short, takes a closer, deeper look at the wild parties on the central beach in Split, Croatia, that started to take place every night after the clubs close. The filming took place over several nights, all summed up to six minutes to see glimpses of a giant party of young tourists with no control or authority (the film took place before the police started to make the parties a bit more orderly). Feelings of repetition until decline comes to the forefront as every single party, like a wave on the beach, happens in the same fashion, over and over again while the 'wave' becomes quieter with each stroke.

Branka is a young caretaker who has recently moved to an island to look after an elderly woman. After the harsh winter is over and her job is finished, Branka decides to stay on the island for the summer season. She gets a job in tourism, but the pay is meager and the job exhausting, making it just a temporary solution.

He lived across, just like this, across the street. He entered his house when we were all going home. The store was closing. In the summertime, it's at 9 PM. That's the last time I saw him.

Mario Haber was a sound engineer and a dedicated brandy maker. For over a decade, he had been recording colorful conversations and sounds in his house and around the alcohol fermenter. The Spirits Diary is a visual reconstruction of his audio recordings.

As a coping mechanism during the grim lockdowns during the global pandemic, Croatian filmmaker Damir Čučić started a project of exchanging video clips with a group of friends through social media. Superbly edited, The Rain Will Weep is created from the archive of more than 3,500 of those videos, portraying the world in a state of chaos that is sometimes violent, often very funny, but mostly absurd.

Fleka doesn’t leave the vicinity of his building. He spends time with his neighbors and occasionally skateboards. Since his mom ended up in a psychiatric clinic, his best friend is his only family. Sometimes, he passes the time with a neighbor who has mental health issues and has adopted a pig. Soon, he realizes that this neighbor is his only friend.

Exhausted by her monotonous everyday routine, young Tufna decides to end her life. As she prepares the noose in her room, the world around her turns distorted and strange.

To the Earthen Red is an experimental, ontological reflection on the nature and narratives of clay extraction that traces out the relation of landscape, object, and the senses. An epic poem meets pottery meets thermography meets the transformation of matter.

Liberland tells the unusual history of a territory located in the Balkans, a micronation proclaimed by the Czech Vít Jedlička. Does this fanciful gesture conceal the willingness to construct a communitarian ideal, or the desire to build an empire of pernicious interests with impenetrable contours? This film skilfully combines geopolitical questioning and spirited satire.

The film is an intimate story about a divorce that took place in Split, the city from which the author hails. An analogy is made between the city of Split (in English, ‘to split – to separate’) and a parting of the ways between two people.

It is a well known fact that films also have their own poets, but wider audience is not familiarized with one of the most lucid and the most significant poets of films on the territory of former Yugoslavia and that is Mihovil Pansini. The sole reason for his unfamiliarity is the fact that he exclusively worked on amateur films. The fate of amateur film in our country was never (and probably won't be in the future either) publically recognized with enough understanding, even though during the last 50 years it was the only example of authentic avant-garde in the field of film expression. Through Pansini's thoughts and film clips, this documentary is attempting to reconstruct, to some extent, this extraordinary author's amateur film making development.

A documentary recording of the Šibenik port from 1904, by Frank S. Mottershaw. For a long time considered to be the oldest extant Croatian film and recording of Croatia, possibly even all Yugoslavian countries, dated to 1903 and ascribed to Stanisław Noworyta. In the meantime, these theories have been rejected, and this film is known to be a part of a larger film, "Krunisanje kralja Petra I Karađorđevića i putovanje kroz Srbiju, Novi Pazar, Crnu Goru i Dalmaciju" ("The coronation of king Peter I of Serbia and a ride trough Serbia, Novi-Bazar, Montenegro and Dalmatia"), by F.S. Mottershaw and Arnold Muir Willson.

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 documentary on the history of traditional tattoo techniques present primarily amongst ethnic Croats and Bosnians in Bosnia and Herzegovina and how they evolved and adapted into the tattooing techniques of today.

A short animated film about a boy and a gift he was not allowed to open.

The film "We wanted workers, we got people" tells about the exploitation of Bosnian construction workers in Slovenia.

A lonely white flower grows surrounded by other plants and every day he struggles to survive.

Agrokor is the largest privately owned company in Croatia and a symbol of modern-day success of Croatian economy. The corporation headquarters is located in the tower of Dražen Petrović House, popularly known as the Cibona Tower, which represents one of the symbols of previous Croatian achievements from the late socialist period. In 2017 Agrokor’s business problems are disclosed – the losses amount to billions. In collusion between politics and economy, who is responsible for the breakdown of this corporation? Today Agrokor’s sign no longer hangs from the Cibona Tower.

Earth has been abandoned for a long time and humanity has found refuge in outer space. Three archaeologists return to Earth to investigate the origin of a mysterious five tone signal…

An autobiographical diary about the director and her mother Vesna, who has lived in Germany for seven years. Vesna's seemingly stable and monotonous life hides another side of her. The film documents the moments that reveal a secret kept by the mother and daughter. It is a voyeuristic portrayal of the disbanding of a family that never had a chance to come together.

Thirteen-year-old Hrvoje has a special talent – he is extremely good at getting into trouble...

Full length documentary about young criminals and young offenders or social cases and their attempts of hooking up with life's second chance after leaving the institutions.

Here There gives graphic form to memory’s malleable, straying lines. It begins as a traveler’s sketchbook, drawn in Croatia in the summer of 2014, but details soon fade away into abstract impressions on the edges of memory. This film is a reduction to the essence, a condensed feeling of one place and time.

Due to socio-political issues in the country, it has become questionable to what extent the decision to leave the home country is forced. The community that is needed to establish better conditions and consequently slow down the trend of emigration due to the same problem remains weakened. These and many other factors lead to devastating statistics and the increasingly present problems of contemporary Croatian society. Žal, allegorically representing the country, tries to find the complex causes of the problem.

A video composed of footage from various weapons manufacturers’ catalogs, military exercises, and wartime actions. Shots of gunfire intertwine with the logos of weapons manufacturers, while political representatives call for fire and purchasing weapons.

After many years, Karla returns to her home island where she must face everything she left behind.

A short documentary about the origin, idea and implementation of the first ever Dark O Metal Fest, which took place on August 15 and 16, 2014. at the Hartera paper factory in Rijeka.

The documentary special of Potraga 'Zavadlav' is about Filip Zavadlav, a 26-year-old sailor who brutally killed three young men in Split and who sent a letter to RTL's journalist Dario Todorović. In the letter, Filip Zavadlav talks about his life and what prompted him to commit such a terrible act. For the first time, comments on the case are provided by Filip's father, Ante Zavadlav, the father of the murdered Marin Ožić Paić, the mother of the murdered Jurica Torlak, Filip's lawyer Branko Šerić, and other key witnesses of the triple murder from January 2020 that shook the Croatian public.

An underage member of the Bad Blue Boys football fan group makes a dangerous and impulse decision which, despite the consequences, he never regretted.

A family that fled war-stricken Bosnia 30 years ago lives on a farm in Croatia. As a storm rages outside, they find a stranger hiding in their barn. The woman is convinced that he is a refugee and wants to help him, but her xenophobic husband opposes the idea. Their 10-year-old son finds himself torn between the kindness of a good Samaritan and cruelty.

A look at the life on the Mediterranean borders of Europe, where tourists try to relax while "illegal" immigrants struggle for a chance of a better life. Breaking out of a strictly confined tourist zone, two Swiss children experience quickly that reality here has very little to do with the posh life in their camping site. A storm hits the shore and washes away almost all distinctions between the rich and the poor.

Astronaut of Featherweight is a dark vision of the hypercapitalist transhuman society in which body is a commodity and money is immortality. From space spa colonies to alien plantations, everybody is forced to take care of their bodies.

On March 22nd 2020, during the Covid lockdown, Zagreb was hit by a violent earthquake. The authorities in power shirked their duties. Not thinking about their own pain, determined women are inventing and organising a collective mobilisation. Their fortitude, their trust in their fellow men, wins over the people.

With the film Good Morning Ante Babaja took one last look in the bloodthirsty jaws also known as Time – with eyes wide open. Until then he did not spare his characters death and transience, and when the time came he directed a childishly inquisitive view on his own inevitable ending. He did it with a small miniDV camera and in a matter of seconds turned from a professional filmmaker to an amateur who films not only when he can and when the conditions are favorable, but always and everywhere because he feels a need to express himself through film and think in terms of film. At the end of his five decades long career, Babaja had the modesty and the inspiration to start again. As an 80-year-old he made his first feature-length documentary film, using digital technology for the first time. Good Morning impressively and consistently rounds up the artistic and life trajectory of a great modernist and paints a unique authorial trace he left in the history of our cinema.

Hills Village 21000 Split is a documentary which in a Fellini style represents the inhabitants of an unusual neighbourhood. We encounter a dentist and writer, a tired ex-boxer who had a carrier in Germany, a hardcore punk band Pas Maters, whose charismatic front man and lead singer mysteriously disappeared, an old soccer supporter with the last name Hajduk, an ex-hooligan diligently studying in a night school and many others. A complex portrait of an unusual Split neighbourhood and its even more unusual inhabitants with Hajduk as their religion.

Gravitational waves are passing through every existing dimension, even the almost undetectable ones. The scientific experiment, in its basic utilitarian nature, is aimed at the understanding of the multidimensional structure of things and has the potential for an uncanny experience. The device has successfully detected the unknown dimension at an infinitesimal scale and set up the parameters for magnification and tracking of all the activities in the ambient of non-place visible to us. By its typology, the universal architecture of non-place is optimised for documenting the unknowable and determining the topology of the unexpected. The film follows the course of the intense activities of the entities present in the N dimension that generate a sort of beyond-human experience.

Due to professional and personal problems, Dr Zodiac loses himself to childhood obsession with circus and eventually escapes from humanity altogether.

A mercilessly humorous portrait of the filmmaker who, in a desperate attempt to save her relationship, visits all her ex-boyfriends.

How do the children affect the feelings and opinions, as well as the relationship between Silvestar and his wife? How does he affect each child? Do children change him? Does each of them do it differently?

The cycling season is nearing its grand finale. During the final race, the two men in the lead are competing for more than the Grand Trophy; they are fighting for the affection of a lady and fulfilment of their erotic fantasies. Meanwhile, the small port town prepares for the arrival of a large ocean liner and its dashing captain. Inspired by the art of Vasko Lipovac, Veljko Popović collaborated with his Lemonade3d Studio to create an animated short marked by unique aesthetics. Painted in vivid colours of summer and with a dash of the erotic, it is a comedy that captures the spirit of a small Mediterranean town.

An animation short featuring various art styles about the loss of identity.

Serbian music video related to the Croatian War (1991-1995), origin of the Internet meme "Remove Kebab".

A panoramic view over society across ten unfortunate characters whose stories sometimes intertwine.

Based on Krleza’s essay written in 1935 which warned about the rise of fascism and Nazism in pre-WWII Europe.

A boy is alone at home, but there are signs there's an uninvited guest with him. He takes his camera and investigates the noise he hears from a dark room.

A boy wakes up in the unknown place and starts searching for his home. When he finally finds it, the things are not as they seem to be.

An extremely untalented bunny Darko takes singing lessons from Zvonko the cricket. Their lessons are a total failure. Both the teacher and the pupil are devastated. Željko the hedgehog brings a new perspective to the problem, turning Darko's flaws into advantages.

On the island where the filmmaker’s grandmother is buried, it is the tradition of women to choose the image that will represent them on their grave after they are gone. As director Sara Jurinčić and her mother travel to this island, we enter a world without men, where female ancestors take centre stage. This beautifully crafted film, both playful and serious, takes us on a cinematic odyssey to hear what the ancestors are whispering from their silent portraits.

After coming home from a holiday, an elderly couple finds their garden neglected.

A biographic documentary about a punk-rock icon who surpassed the music and became a symbol of common sense and free thinking.

After Zvone gets diagnosed with dementia, he tries his hardest to cling to the remaining pieces of the memories he still has left within him because he doesn't wish to loose his identity. His son Neno is heartbroken at her father's state and decides to take over as the new head of the household, despite the role reversal being as much of a shock to him as it is to his father.

A man lives with a silent presence that never leaves him alone. He has grown used to it and is no longer afraid, but over time, the constant presence becomes harder to live with, until he can’t take it anymore.

The film 'Wallet' is an action story with a touch of comedy about Bora Lee's son, who lost his wallet in a fight with his neighbor.

A documentary film which shows how hope and faith do not disappear despite difficult, almost hopeless life situation. The protagonists of the film are a mother and daughter, Elizabeta and Mia, who testify by their example how faith in God helped them survive the hardest moments in life.