Discoveries from Croatia World Cinema

Break-dance trash musical comedy/parody based on William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.

A short portrait of a mother-daughter relationship.

‘Over the course of several summer days in Split I talked to my mom about everything. I mean, really everything.’

Branko has been a truck driver for only a few months, a choice that is quite understandable, given that he now earns three times as much as he did as a schoolteacher. But everything has a price, which is not always quantifiable in terms of money. As children we were told: “work ennobles man”. But here the opposite seems true: it is Branko, with his efficiency, his obstinacy, his good will, who ennobles a job that grows more and more alienating, absurd and enslaving.

An early summer evening begins with a game, while one kid counts to three thousand, the others hide in a row of suburban gardens. During that time, a young father spends the rest of his day with someone else’s child, an old man awaits a call that will change his life and the future of a year-long friendship becomes uncertain. The game ends when mosquitoes start rising from the grass.

The film is about a conflict between two men.

Wistful croquis of the neigborhood in western Zagreb at the beggining of the '90's.

Goran Vincic filmed his second special at Hala sportova Belgrade with a record attendance - the largest audience ever for a stand-up comedy show in Serbia. This special recorded on the "Reci mi da se salis" tour brings the highest quality production and a spectacle that has not been seen in this part of Europe.

During the Croatian War of Independance, a society of authors, painters, sculptors, playwrights and other artists was formed in the coastal city of Zadar with a singular goal in mind: fighting war and trauma with their craft and thus keeping the spark and strength of the city's diverse community alive.

Andro comes to his hometown for a summer vacation and meets two friends from his youth — Toni has become a father, Franko is stuck in his old ways, while Andro drifts somewhere in between.

A guy is sitting in his dark room and reads his mother's obituary.

One in five families in Croatia lose their apartment or house due to being unable to pay back credit or keep up with overhead expenses. The rigorous Seizure Law provides banks and other institutions with an easier way of gaining real estate. When the system fails, when a citizen has nowhere to apply for assistance and when the unscrupulous administration dislodges them from their flats or houses, then young activists arrive to help and with their bodies prevent the execution of the eviction. HOME has recorded grievous scenes from the very places where the cordons of special police use force to drag away children, women, the young and the old - whose one and only wish is to stay and live in their only home.

Sasa is an unsuccessful writer who works as a restaurant critic. His life starts to change when he meets and falls in love with Ines who works in a private sports center. However, things get complicated when he writes a bad review for the restaurant owned by a well-connected man. To get his life in order, Sasa has to face up to all of his character flaws.

It is known that adolescents show a special interest in horror films because they create a feeling of excitement, tension, increased attention, followed by relief when the negative characters are punished. Research shows that children thus question their own fears and their ways of dealing with them, and build resilience to stress. Two animators, motivated by their personal interest in horror, created a short animated film inspired by watching famous clips from Hitchcock's The Birds. The film was made using a very demanding chalk drawing technique on a wooden board to make the frames as dark as possible, and additional tension was created by sound effects of roars and thunder, and music that increases the tension.

The tavern "Jablan" existed in the 1980s and was located in a small village, Jugovo Polje, in Croatia, SFRY. "Jablan" was a symbol of "brotherhood and equality" for its owners, guests, musicians, and waiters. It was a place where people of different generations and education gathered - from workers and peasants to doctors, even music and sports stars of the '80s, it was a place where nationality and religious affiliation played no role. Nevertheless, the first shooting between Serbs and Croats took place in "Jablan", which heralded the war in Croatia and ended "Jablan's carefree days". The film protagonists reconstruct the events, from the day the tavern was created, to its destruction, witnessing how a place of love and joy became an object of hatred and destruction within a few months.

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.

The story revolves around the main character who hears a phone ringing for months that he can't get rid of, and then goes to investigate where the ringing is coming from and encounters creepy complications.

The documentary film "Travelers" is an emotionally extremely powerful story of repression and rebellion, the art and the love that breaks through the limits of socially acceptable, survives despite destructive social norms and relations. Love, that is, as our main protagonists say, ready for sacrifice. And a common artistic project that mirrors themselves, incarnates their life energy.

The film follows Mrs. Sarika's departure to a Jewish retirement home. What was supposed to be a peaceful end to life, turns into the horror of the Holocaust, and she herself becomes a victim.

Two people with wildly different views on where they currently stand in their potential relationship meet each other for dinner. Will they really turn out to be soulmates or will they both come out of this randez vous unsatisfied with the results?

In 1964, Petar Ivulić, an adventurer from Split with roots in Brac and address in Paris, opened the first disco club in Jelsa on the island of Hvar. This pioneering venture started a wave of opening disco clubs across the country.

A story inspired by the largest single rescue mission of downed Allied airmen behind enemy lines in aviation history of all time, codenamed “The Halyard Mission”. This action took place in the summer of 1944. It was led by the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland that was headed by General Dragoljub “Draža” Mihailović. It was at great cost and sacrifice that the Serbian people saved 508 American and other Allied countries’ airmen from certain death, sending them off to safety from the improvised airfield in the Serbian village of Pranjani, at the foot of Mt Suvobor.

Davor is an IT technician who sees the solution to his troubles in going to Canada. On the same day he receives an email that his work visa has been approved, Lana happens to see it too. While he is worrying about how to tell her he’s going to Canada, she is planning a confrontation, frustrated by his secrecy and the depression that have plagued her for months.

In the cartoon transformations, we follow the struggle of the embryo to form into an articulated being. The being - the man is helped by the being - the woman to complete and become complete. But gender-opposed beings devour each other in the chaos of the universe and reduce their mythical game to eternal repetition and search for meaning in form.

On the island of Lošinj, a man finds healing and purpose in its therapeutic air, while uncovering the island's hidden military past through the stories of a former soldier, blending nature, history, and human connection.

Rosa is from Croatia and lives in Switzerland, with her husband who depends on her care. She takes care of everything. Her children have grown up and want to leave home. Rosa stays behind alone.

Slobodan meets his father Nenad for the first time in twenty-five years to discuss signing over the deed of the house, which Nenad wants to leave him. Their relationship has been strained ever since Nenad left Croatia during the war in the nineties.

The story follows a group of Croatian refugees who have been forced to leave their hometown of Vukovar by Serbian forces during Croatia's struggle for independence. The people are settled at a railway station in a village near Vukovar, where they live in a train which is adapted to serve as a temporary accommodation.The situation grows dim as the date of their return proves to be uncertain, and the lives of the survivors and refugees becomes more and more complicated being burdened by PTSD and strong feelings of hope to return to their homestead.

Just as the hedgehog is about to begin hibernating, he notices that one of his quills is missing! And worse still, it's stuck in Lena's dog's bottom. Getting it back is anything but easy.

Closing the restaurant at a remote location, a young woman realizes she is not alone.

Every morning, Boris the village baker makes a fresh batch of crusty bread and pastries for all his neighbours until… Achoo! He can’t stop sneezing. He has become allergic to flour. How will he manage to keep baking for everyone in the village?

After his wife's murder and house burnt, a young soldier is in search for new home for his daughter. But coming to chaotic at the beginning of the war Zagreb is no place for hope...

A young man named Strahinja marries Radojka, a beautiful girl from a small village famous for its apparently haunted mill, unaware that she hides a dark supernatural secret.

Benign demon deeply disappointed with his life in hell and drunkard father one day decides to leave his home.

Director is working on a new film. He invites the main actor to the remote island of Vis so they can work on the script. Due to isolation they face on the island during the winter period, the two of them are unexpectedly faced with their own frustrations, which are constantly intertwined with the films plot in a strange way.

A persistent rain falls on Zagreb. That day Janko finally decides to take the threads of his life in his own hands. For him this means, before anything, an attempt to establish a relationship with Iva who he has wanted to approach for some time followed by dealing with his aging father Franjo, a miserable translator who needs an escort to an award ceremony where he will receive an award for lifetime achievement. Iva and Franjo have their own secrets that they don't want to keep to themselves and also ideas of how this rainy day should go. Someone should, in the end, walk the dog.

Under the burning sun, beachgoers are trying to take advantage of every minute of their paid trip to a desolate beach. Among them are a mother with her grown son, two ladies and their dog, a passive-aggressive married couple, loud Italians, happy Hungarians, and an overweight, possibly dead, German lady.

Matija Remetin is young man who is studying drama in Zagreb just before the outbreak of WW2. He rents the room at Marija Slajner, widow who's three previous tennants had commited suicide. Remetin begins to notice a beautiful and mysterious girl on the other side of street and begins calling her Nausicaa.

The crash of student strike, also the crash of "Croatian Spring" in December of 1971, causes a violent separation of its three participants: A member of student leaders Jakov, his brother Mislav and Jakov's girlfriend Suncana. Jakov escapes abroad, while Mislav and Suncana remain in Zagreb believing that nothing bad can happen to them. Meanwhile, Mislav is getting arrested and Suncana stays alone. 20 years later, Jakov returns from Australia looking for a new beginning. He stays at Mislav's who married a girl from a rich family, after being released from prison and became a dentist. Soon, the brothers discover that the scelator from the past were not buried after all. The case of Suncana Krizic, who got killed in 1972 under mysterious circumstances, becomes Jakov's obsession in finding the truth.

A documentary that explores the events of the disrupted football match between Dinamo (Zagreb) and Crvena Zvezda (Beograd) on May 13th 1990. As fighting broke out the match was cancelled and the events are explored with testimonies from members of Bad Blue Boys and the police of the time. The event is considered by many as the start of the Croatian war for independence (Domovinski rat).

Ankica is the proud owner of a legitimate massage salon, which she runs with her best friend Ljilja. She dreams of keeping her out-of-work husband and adult daughter in comfort while helping Ljilja pay for her son's recurring rehab programs. But in reality, Ankica’s debts are mounting, and she refuses to add happy endings (sexual favors) at the salon to increase revenues. When a loan shark threatens to take her apartment if she does not repay her debt, in desperation, she turns to crime.

In a God-fearing village, giving birth to a "fačuk", an illegitimate child, is a mortal sin. In this narrow-minded, harsh, rural environment, fear grows inside the young pregnant woman who is about to give birth at any moment.

Roko and Boris are getting ready to rob one house in the suburbs. Boris seams to be up to the task, while Roko is having trouble with it. When they ring the door bell, asking for help and claiming that their car broke down, the person who answers the door is, to their surprise, a priest.

The movie "Swineherds" is a satirical anti-musical which deals with the phenomena of the media sensationalism that trivializes even the most serious and the most painful subjects. The movie depicts the phenomenon of media manipulation, mass hysteria, thirst for fame and people that will, more than ever, do whatever it takes to keep their fifteen minutes of fame.

Two young boys form an unlikely friendship during wartime, despite the opposing forces that surround them.

Feature documentary film on the phenomenon of Uskoks of Senj, legendary corsairs and anti-Osman soldiers from 16th and 17th century.

When two paranormal investigators are called to a remote forest villa to debunk a haunting, they find themselves trapped in a time loop where each night ends in violent death – and each day resets like nothing happened. As cryptic messages appear in the mirrors and reality begins to fracture, they uncover the presence of a forgotten boy whose tragic past holds the key to breaking the cycle. But the arrival of a violent outsider – and his terrified captive – threatens to tear the loop apart before the truth can be revealed.

Martin tried to fight the system, and now he's on the run. Sara is a conceptual artist. Together they join the revolutionary commune in the countryside. The police are on their trail. Inspector Ambroz knows the right questions are more important than the answers. Because maybe none of this is true.

After spending four years in prison, a drug dealer will do anything to keep custody over his son.

A documentary that investigates the cause and effect of the disrupted football match between Dinamo (Zagreb) and Crvena Zvezda (Beograd) on May 13th 1990.

25 years from the Homeland war, Croatia is far from ideal of the veterans, now disgruntled men silenced with pensions. A few war veterans are brought back together by an idea of Museum of Homeland Thanksgiving in Paromlin building in Zagreb city center.

An archival road trip with Stevan Labudović, cameraman to Yugoslav President Tito and cinematic eye of the Algerian revolution, investigating the role of cinema in the liberation struggles of the Third World and reconstructing the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Keka is a virtuoso housewife who suffers because of the lethargy of her marriage with Baja, a concerned railway worker. To make things even worse, Keka is being seriously courted by Ilija, a handyman who is so clumsy that he produces apocalypse wherever he shows up. After Baja finally becomes aware of Ilija's intentions and after the two of them demolish Keka's home as a result of their clumsy showdowns, Keka decides to leave both of them and to go on a trip to the only place where she felt some happiness - to a small coastal village where she and Baja went on their honeymoon... However, things start to complicate because Keka falls under the scrutiny of Lujo, an untypical lonely fisherman-flirter. Baja and Ilija decide to go on a trip, to embark on the biggest adventure in their lives and to prove their love to Keka...

After a series of brutal murders, and orders from The Big Boss, two callous and cold killers continue their bloodshed, only wanting to eliminate a weak old man, who is actually their biggest obstacle, but also a great threat to their unscrupulous plan.

TV movie made for New Year’s Eve.

When ten year old Alisa's parents mysteriously go missing, she decides to join forces with a local amateur sleuth club and her thirteen year old autistic brother that she had always been embarrassed by, bonding with both parties along the way.

Maša and her boyfriend decide to visit their friends who own a property on a small Dalmatian island. What starts off as a potentially fun vacation turns into a game of trust when Maša confides to her friend that she's expecting, with this sudden revelation testing the boundries of everyone's comfort zone.

Nine short films are connected into one whole, and they describe life in Croatia's capital of Zagreb.

Sunčica, an author and veterinarian, re-examines her own ethical position on her journey, building a portrait of the Croatian islands through the attitudes of the local population on the castration of free-ranging cats. When faced with surgery on her own body, her empathy deepens, as she begins to relate her position to the fate of the animals she cares for.

It’s summer and the streets are almost empty in a small town, once the centre of the metalworking industry in former Yugoslavia. People gather at the public swimming pool. Two friends are saying goodbye.