FESTIVALS

Third Zagreb Film Festival

The review of the third Zagreb Film Festival starts with the author’s insight into the causes of the recent outburst of festivals both in Croatia and Zagreb, where popularity of festival and review screenings of non-commercial films can primarily be ascribed to the craving for such films after years of draught, although the author also emphasizes the problem of low attendance levels when such films are occasionally featured on regular cinema programs, outside of the festival context. Next, the author comments on the excellent media coverage and visitation rates of this year’s third festival, and how it keeps gaining in popularity. However, the author notices several drawbacks — the lack of true long feature bait for the viewers and a generally weak long feature selection, which was explained by the competing festivals in Motovun and Pula. Prominent titles among long features were You and I and Everyone We Know by Miranda July and Get Married by Ronit and Shlomija Elkabetz. Short films stood out markedly in comparison to long features (Winter Dream by John Williams; Happy Easter by Ulrich Schaffner and Martinom Fischbacher; Butterflies by Max Jacoby; In the Shadow by Olivier Masset-Depasse; Everything in this Country must... by Gary Mckendry), while documentary films definitely turned the scales when quality was concerned. Prominent titles in this selection were films Šutka, the book of records by Aleksandar Manić, overrated Crossing the Bridge by Fatih Akin and Favela is waking up by Jeff Zimbalist and Matt Mochary. However, it was a failure to put the winning film, mockumentary First on the Moon by Aleksej Fedorčenko in the documentary selection.

Goran Kovač