WORKSHOP
(FOR PITCH PARTICIPANTS ONLY)
FRIDAY, 21 JULY, 3 – 5 P.M.
FESTIVAL CENTRE
(HOME OF CROATIAN VETERANS, LEHAROVA 1)
MENTOR: Ena Rahelić
Ena Rehelić
head of Industry and strategic development consultant at Mediterranean Film Festival Split/Kino Mediteran.
With a background in journalism and communication science studies, she gained experience in her 15 years of work in the media and film industry. Along with TV and radio production in Austria, she spent more than seven years working for Obala Art Centar/Sarajevo Film Festival as manager of CineLink Industry Days, head of Operation Kino, the Dealing with the Past section, and works as distributer for the territory of former Yugoslavia.
Since 2018, she has been working with Mediterranean Film Festival Split as consultant for strategic development and head of Industry. She is also producer at Digital Magic Studio for audio postproduction from Zagreb, and in 2023 she took over the position of head of Industry – Meeting Point – at Vilnius International Film Festival.
PITCH
SATURDAY, 22 JULY AT 10 A.M.
VALLI CINEMA (GIARDINI 1)
HOST: Ljubo Lasić
PARTICIPANTS: authors of selected work in progress projects
LANGUAGE: English
JURY: Nadia Paschetto (Arras Film Festival director), Jan Pavel (sound designer, Sleepwalker), Selma Mehadžić (producer, Zagreb Film Festival distribution)
Nadia Paschetto
was a teacher and trainer in the field of images for children, teenagers and adults from 1990 to 2004. From 1994, she contributed to the development of the image education and distribution activities of Plan-Séquence, a structure based in the north of France. In 2000, together with Eric Miot, she set up the Arras Film Festival, of which she is the director and programmer, an annual event of international importance, which focuses essentially on the promotion of European cinema in France. Her work takes her to a number of festivals (Berlin, Cannes, TIFF, Karlovy Vary, etc.) She was a member of the fiction reading committee at PICTANOVO Région Hauts-de-France from 2008 to 2016.
She has been a member of the college of recommendation for art cinema at the Association Française des Cinémas d’Art et Essai since January 2017 and of the Committee of Experts since September 2018. After having been a member of the Commission of Aides aux Cinémas du monde at the CNC (2nd College) from June 2017 to May 2019, she held the position of Vice-President of the same Commission (1st College) from June 2019 to July 2021.
Jan Pavel
Production sound mixer, sound designer and music composer based in Prague, Czech Republic. Studied at Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. During his short career Pavel already gained various experiences working on 30+ projects – mixing and booming features and TV series as well as reality shows and documentaries in challenging conditions above polar circle or in the war zone. Pavel is recognised for his work on: – DER SCHATTEN (2023/ ZDF), ORDINARY FAILURES (2022/XOVA). HANNA 3 (2021/AMAZON), CITY ON THE RIVER (2020/8HEADS), MTV CHALLENGE (2019/MTV), FREUD (2019/ NETFLIX), KIRUNA – BRAND NEW WORLD (2019/ANALOG VISION) – Best Sound Award – Thessaloniky Film Festival 2019. As a music composer Pavel contributed to international documents (HBO), several advertisements (SKODA, MOSER), theatre performances or Czech National Museum installations.
Selma Mehadžić
Born in Pula in 1984. Holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb. She started researching the connection between cultural institutions, cultural management, and audience development during her studies and worked at a number of film festivals (Zagreb Film Festival, ZagrebDox, Review of Amateur Film, Motovun Film Festival, Animafest) and on projects by the production company Propeler Film. In 2007, she joined the Zagreb Film Festival artistic organisation where she currently works as producer, selector, and head of film distribution. For ten years, from 2009 to 2019, she worked as head of film programming at the Europa Cinema in Zagreb. She often collaborates with other organisations as film programming coordinator and consultant (Art Cinema Arsen in Šibenik, Valli Cinema in Pula, Centre for Culture Čakovec, etc.), and was a member of the selection panels for the Best European Comedy of the Year (2019–2021) and the LUX Prize of the European Parliament (2018–2020). In 2016, she founded KinoKino – International Film Festival for Children, the only festival in Croatia dedicated to professional feature films for children. She is a member of the European Film Academy (EFA) and the Croatian Producers Association.
For a number of years, this programme has been screening Croatian films that are in postproduction phase, which the directors and producers present to the three-member jury. The selected projects compete for three prizes: picture and sound processing in the amount of 3,000 EUR, awarded by the Slovenian company Teleking; postproduction audio processing in the amount of 10,000 EUR, awarded by the Czech studio Sleepwalker; and the Festival prize in the amount of 6,000 EUR.
Films to be presented: Fiume o morte! (I. Bezinović), Frka (S. M. Jelić), Between Us (L. Pascu), Men on the Island (I. Grgur), Pavilion 6 (G. Dević), Celebration (B. Anković), Summer Teeth (D. Žarković), European Union Wolf (J. Boban), Women, Loonies and a Few Good Fags (I. Salaj)
PROJECTS
FIUME O MORTE!
documentary, feature film
Croatia, Italy, Slovenia
DIRECTOR Igor Bezinović
SCREENPLAY Igor Bezinović
PRODUCERS Tibor Keser, Vanja Jambrović
COMPANY Restart
Citizens of Rijeka, which Italians call Fiume, retell, reconstruct and reinterpret the bizarre story of the 16-month occupation of their city in 1919 by the Italian poet, a dandy and preacher of war, Gabriele D’Annunzio.
Igor Bezinović (1983), graduated in philosophy, sociology and comparative literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb and film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He directed the films Blockade (Oktavijan Award for Best Croatian Documentary Film in 2012), Veruda (Oktavijan Award for Best Croatian Documentary Film in 2015), and A Brief Excursion (Grand Golden Arena for Best Croatian Feature Film in 2017), and several short films of various types and lengths.
His films have been screened at international festivals in Rotterdam, Leipzig, Ji.hlava, and Guanajuato, as well as Biennale des jeunes créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée and the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (with Hrvoslava Brkušić for the Pula group), and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.
FRKA
thriller, drama, comedy
Croatia
DIRECTOR Svebor Mihael Jelić
SCREENPLAY Sven Latinović
CAST Kristina Jovanović, Sven Latinović, Antonija Mrkonjić,
Luka Vondrak, Vedran Dakić
PRODUCER Sven Latinović
COMPANY Oksimoron
After messing up a job for the local drug dealer, Nika is presented with an ultimatum that takes her and her friends on a no-holds-barred race against time on a night that will test all the limits they thought they knew.
Svebor Mihael Jelić (1998), director and screenwriter whose debut short film Đaneri was screened at Croatian and international festivals, and his feature debut Zagreb Equinox was the most watched domestic film in Croatian cinemas in 2020. He is a student of directing and cinematography at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW). He is the founder the informal film collective CEFGIF.
BETWEEN US
Croatia
love drama
DIRECTOR Laura Pascu
SCREENPLAY Laura Pascu, Matej Sudarić, Vini Jurčić
CAST Vini Jurčić, Adrian Bagarić
PRODUCER Adrijana Prugovečki
COMPANY Blank
In a specific poetic style, this love drama integrates several genres: with action elements it documents the ups and downs of a relationship, culminating in physical and verbal conflict.
Laura Pascu (1997) graduated in animated film and new media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and has received the Rector’s Award for her work. She was the editor of the comedy Zagreb Equinox, screened at Pula Film Festival in 2019, and her project Light Range was screened at Pula Film Festival in 2017. She is completing her feature debut Between Us.
MEN ON THE ISLAND
documentary, comedy, drama
Croatia
DIRECTOR Ivan Grgur
SCREENPLAY Ivan Grgur
PRODUCER Lucija Perić
COMPANY Academy of Dramatic Art
This documentary film follows the life of men from Dugi otok and their unusual endeavours: Vedran (60) is building replicas of Egyptian pyramids in the olive groves, Sebastijan (30) is unsuccessfully attempting to erect a huge cross on top of a hill, Bila (65) is trying to sell his van that is impossible to be sold, Rino (55) is operating boat tours, but can’t catch a break, and David (10) and Lukas (6) are constantly looking for fun and
kids to hang out with on an island that is lacking in both.
Ivan Grgur is a 2019 graduate of the Restart School of Documentary Film. He made his first short documentary film Probably Dead in the same year. He then enrolled into the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He is currently making his graduating film Men on the Island, while his third short documentary film Rade Saves the Season is in postproduction.
PAVILION 6
documentary
Croatia
DIRECTOR Goran Dević
SCREENPLAY Goran Dević
PRODUCER Hrvoje Osvadić
COMPANY Petnaesta umjetnost d.o.o.
By filming random conversations of people waiting in line for the COVID-19 vaccine, the film tries to answer the question of whether we still exist as a society or whether we have turned into a group of disoriented individuals whose only solace is the fact that the problem we face is not endemic, or local, but global.
Goran Dević (1971) studied law and archeology, and graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, where he teaches film and TV directing at the undergraduate and graduate studies as associate professor. He wrote and directed some twenty documentary and fiction films, and is the co-writer and director of the feature film The Blacks. He is the author of awarded documentary films.
CELEBRATION
drama
Croatia
DIRECTOR Bruno Anković
SCREENPLAY Jelena Paljan
CAST Bernard Tomić, Krešimir Mikić, Klara Fiolić, Jan Doležal, Lars Štern, Nedim Nezirović, David Tasić Daf, Tanja Smoje, Izudin Bajrović, Viktorija Lulić, Tena Šubarić
PRODUCERS Rea Rajčić, Tina Tišljar
COMPANY Eclectica
Film adaptation of the novel by Damir Karakaš that follows 20 years of Mijo’s life by using a non-linear and elliptical plot testifying to the eternal cycle of history and the impossibility of real change.
Bruno Anković graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He directed short fiction, documentary, and commission films, and has been professionally working in film since 1999. He has made more than 1500 commission films and commercials. Celebration is his first feature fiction film.
SUMMER TEETH
comedy
Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
DIRECTOR Dražen Žarković
SCREENPLAY Zoran Lazić, Ivan Turković Krnjak, Maja Todorović
CAST Momčilo Otašević, Ivana Gulin, Snježana Sinovčić
PRODUCERS Damir Terešak, Ana Grbac, Nikolina Vučetić
Zečević
COMPANY Maxima film
A student on the run from a bad employer comes to a remote island to harvest tomatoes, but there awaits a team of goofy people, one true love, and a fight for his life
Dražen Žarkovć (1970) graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He
directed five feature films: Go, Yellow!, Trešeta, Zagonetni dječak, Alka, and My Grandpa is an Alien. As a member of a group of authors he has received the Croatian national film award, Oktavijan Award for Best Short Animated film Čekaj me (1993), short film Samopotjera (1994), medium-length (1970) graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He directed five feature films: Go, Yellow!, Trešeta, Zagonetni dječak, Alka, and My Grandpa is an Alien. As a member of a group of authors he has received the Croatian national film award, Oktavijan Award for Best Short Animated film Čekaj me (1993), short film Samopotjera (1994), medium-length
EUROPEAN UNION WOLF
documentary
Croatia
DIRECTOR Jadran Boban
SCREENPLAY Dragan Grozdanić
PRODUCER Dana Budisavljević
COMPANY Hulahop
Life in Bukovica has always been connected to sheep farming, but then the wolves came. The inhabitants resort to a conspiracy theory as the only explanation for their situation.
Jadran Boban (1969) graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. He directed several documentary films, the most well-known being the films The Ghosts of Zagreb, which won special mention at Liburnia Film Festival and was screened at ZagrebDox and Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, and That Other Village, which won an award at SEEfest South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles.
WOMEN, LOONIES AND A FEW GOOD FAGS
black comedy, drama
Croatia
DIRECTOR Ivan Salaj
SCREENPLAY Ivan Salaj
CAST Filip Detelić, Živko Anočić, Frano Mašković, Sanja Milardović, Romina Tonković, Ana Maras Harmander
PRODUCERS Zoran Živković, Ivan Salaj
COMPANY Plavi mjesec d.o.o.
Writer Robert got fired as a journalist, a job as a screenwriter, Hepatitis B, penile burns and a knockout, became a father and godfather, slept with four women, and encouraged a friend to commit suicide – in just four days without sobering up
Ivan Salaj graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. His student films, the TV drama See You, and two documentary films, Second Floor, Basement and Hotel Sunja, have won several international awards, Rector’s Award, Oktavijan Award, Breza Award, and Golden Arena Award. He worked as screenwriter and director on some forty short and feature films, as assistant director on some ten fiction films, as co-writer on five fiction films, as creative director on two animated films, and as director on some seventy commercials for a number of production companies. He wrote and directed two short fiction films as part of two omnibus projects – Zagreb Stories Vol. 3 and Transmania (2015), as well as the multiple award-winning film The Eighth Commissioner (2018), which was also the Croatian entry for the Academy Awards.
