Zagreb Film Festival (ZFF) returns to the Croatian capital on Monday, November 4, for its 22nd edition. Running until November 10, this highlight fixture of the Zagreb cultural calendar will deliver multiple Croatian debuts of potential Oscar and other major award nominees, as well as regional and international movies that have already taken top honours from the festival circuit this year. The festival will take place across four locations: Cinestar Branimir; Kino Kinoteka; the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU), and Dokukino KIC.
Opening night sees the Zagreb premiere of Split-born director Bruno Anković’s Celebration, at 7.30pm at Cinestar Branimir which will host all screenings from the main feature programme. Celebration looks at the key stages of a young Croat villager’s life between the early 1920s and the outbreak of the World War II, tracking the rise of extremism and its devastating consequences. As the director put it, he was inspired to “talk about the past in order to talk about the present”.
Other potential highlights include Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, starring himself and Succession star Kieran Culkin as cousins who travel to Poland to bury their holocaust-survivor grandmother in a story about modern adulthood, family and the neuroses entailed within. Meanwhile, beloved indie-darling director Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door will be wrapping up the festival at its closing ceremony. Starring acting titans Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, this film clinched the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival this September.
There is plenty more on offer – across the seven days of screenings, audiences will have the opportunity to watch over 100 feature-length and short films divided up into various categories, including the main competition programmes for both. Other categories include the Checkers programme, which focuses on domestic shorts from up-and-coming young directors, as well as Together Again, which spotlights works from directors previously featured in the festival’s main competition programmes.
Marathon season tickets for ZFF are priced at €25, while admission for individual screenings varies based on location, programme and time of day. A full breakdown of tickets can be found here, including information on films completely free of charge. A full schedule (by day and location) can be found here while guests can explore the details of each category and film of the festival here.
Where: Zagreb, across four cinemas
When: November 4-10
Admission: Festival tickets €25; individual tickets vary