Pula Film Festival is ready to set sail and greet the largest film audience in Croatia for the 66th time. With numerous daily programmes and screenings, the first day of the Festival will be marked by the long-awaited premiere of the film General, directed by Antun Vrdoljak, about the life and significance of General Ante Gotovina for Croatia and its history. The film stars Goran Višnjić, and the screening has seen a lot of interest from the audience since the first day of ticket sales.

On the evening of the screening, the crew of the film General will have a press conference that will be open to the public, at 10.40 a.m. at Giardini, outside the Valli Cinema. General is the first of the eight Croatian films to be screened at the Arena, and competing for the Golden Arenas in the Croatian Programme are six more films of Croatian minority co-production, which will be screened at the The opening ceremony will start at 9.30 p.m., and will be broadcast live on Channel 1 of Croatian Radiotelevision. The President of the Republic of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović will attend the opening ceremony, as the Festival is held under her high patronage. The hosts of the opening ceremony will be Duško Čurlić and Ivan Vukušić, while the sisters Marija Husar Rimac and Ivana Husar Mlinac will perform the Istrian anthem and the Croatian national anthem. An important award will be presented at the opening ceremony - the Marijan Rotar Award, named after its founder. This year’s Marijan Rotar Award will be presented to the Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria. The already traditional fireworks will follow the opening ceremony as the symbolic start of the new edition of Pula Film Festival.