Zagreb Film Festival, Zagreb’s grandest cinematic adventure, will take place for the 17th time from 7th till 17th November at Tuškanac Cinema, the Museum of Contemporary Art, KIC Hall, KUC Travno, NS Dubrava, and the Lauba Gallery. After more than 10 years, ZFF is at a new start, and enters its new chapter without its biggest and most beautiful movie theatre, Europa, whose future remains uncertain — with hope for a better and brighter future for cinema in Zagreb.

As always, the pivotal point of the festival is the main competition program of feature and short films, providing an overview of best recent debut and second films from around the globe, as well as the national short film competition program, Checkers, a platform that has hosted short films of all the most important domestic new names.

Among the ten titles to be screened in this year’s main feature-film competition is Beanpole, a movie by the young Russian author Kantemir Balagov, the most sought-after talent in the European festival scene.

The Together Again competition program also gets a slight revamp this year: until now it showcased authors whom ZFF followed continuously through its programs, but starting from this year, it will also include films distributed, and followed, through Europa Cinema’s programs. The best film in the program will be awarded the Golden Bicycle, but instead of the jury, the audience will decide the winner. In this year’s program, we will see, among others, films from established Nordic directors, Roy Andersson and Grímur Hákonarson.

A number of great films will be available in the PLUS competition program for youth audiences, as well as in other popular side programs: The Great 5, Bib for Kids, LUX Film Days and Festivals in the Spotlight. The 8th edition of the educational professional networking platform, INDUSTRY, will once again include a series of workshops, lectures, panel discussions and a pitching forum for student projects from the region.

After visiting a record 16 towns last year, the ZFF Travels program continues this year. Several handpicked titles from this year’s program will be shown in Samobor, Bjelovar, Slatina, Pazin, Varaždin and other towns.