Pula Film Festival is the most popular film festival in Croatia (77.558 visitors in 2010.), a big screen, open air, summer festival founded in 1954 which makes it the oldest national film festival in the world and one of the oldest festivals in general. London newspaper The Guardian in 2005 wrote that Pula is "one of the three most spectacular open-air festivals in Europe". Its National & Popular programme, opening and award ceremonies are traditionally held in ancient Vespasian’s Amphitheatre (constructed in the mid-1st century B.C), popularly called Arena, that in summer becomes one of the biggest open-air cinemas in the world (along with Locarno and Taormina). In ancient times it was used for gladiator battles, and now is used for cultural events. It can accomodate more than 5000 spectators. Screenings of the films in the International Competition are held on the Pula Castle and in the Cinema Valli.

Until 1991 Pula Film Festival was the Yugoslavian national festival, while now the festival has two competition programs, Croatian national and international, with separate awards. All the films in the International programme will be competing for the Golden Arena for the Best Foreign Film of the Festival and two jury prizes. Our recent guests were John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, Jiri Menzel, Greta Scacchi, Christopher Lee and James Ivory.