Quality selection of European films, world drama series and documentary films guaranteed in Pula from 14 to 22 July
At today’s press conference held at the French Institute Médiathèque in Zagreb, the artistic director of Pula Film Festival Zlatko Vidačković presented the selection for the International Programme of the 65th Pula Film Festival, which, other than live-action feature films, this year also includes documentary films and drama series. A selection of the most high-quality recent accomplishments of European and independent world film, chosen from the programmes of relevant international festivals, brings 13 feature films in the programme category Europolis-Meridians, including the winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes, Happy as Lazzaro (director Alice Rohrwacher), Eva (director Benoit Jacquot), C'est la vie! (directors Olivier Nakache, Éric Toledano), Black Tide (director Erick Zonca), Welcome to Germany (director Simon Verhoeven), The Bookshop (director Isabel Coixet), The Royal Exchange (director Marc Dugain), Reinventing Marvin (director Anne Fontaine), On Chesil Beach (director Dominic Cooke), The Last Band in Lebanon (director Ben Bachar), At War (director Stéphane Brizé), The Amok (director Vardan Tozija) and Beast (director Michael Pearce).
The popular festival trend of watching drama series will not be excluded from this year’s Pula Film Festival - there will be screenings of episodes filmed in Croatia with state support: 2 episodes of the series Croatian Crime Story: Murder on Vis and Knife to the Throat (director Michael Kreindl), as well as Knightfall (director Douglas MacKinnon); 2 episodes of the series Black Sun (director Dragan Bjelogrlić), which cast Croatian actors Goran Bogdan and Bojan Navojec, while the Croatian actress Zrinka Cvitešić, winner of the prestigious Olivier Award, is cast in the series Capital (director Euros Lyn).
The following documentary films will be screened as part of the section ‘from the history of film’: Becoming Bond (director Josh Greenbaum), The Botorić Family (director Srđan Knežević), Codelli (director Miha Čelar), Hitler’s Hollywood (director Rudiger Suchsland), Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (director Stig Bjorkman) and Becoming Cary Grant (director Mark Kidel). Following from the rich festival history and ahead of the jubilee, Vidačković also presented the invaluable films from the Time Machine programme, which will see screenings of the films Mayerling (one of the films from the first film revue at the Pula Arena in 1938) and A život jde dál (the oldest preserved feature film in Croatian, from 1935).
The Ambrela Beach, which has been accepted as a great place to enjoy films under the stars, will offer evening screenings of the following films to the student-age youth: Diamond of Boyana (director Milan Karadžić), 303 (director Hans Weingartner), Patti Cake$ (director Geremy Jasper) and Fake Tattoos (director Pascal Plante).
The Ambassador of Israel to Croatia, Zina Kalay Kleitman, is pleased with the cooperation on the jubilee edition of the Festival, and has welcomed this year’s International Programme, which includes the premiere of the film The Last Band in Lebanon, as well as the Retrospective of Contemporary Israeli Cinema, organised in cooperation with the Embassy of Israel in Croatia, which includes the films Bethlehem (director Yuval Adler), Zero Motivation (director Talya Lavie), Mr. Predictable (director Roy Florentine), Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (directors Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz), The Farewell Party (director Sharon Maymon), Hunting Elephants (director Reshef Levi) and Turn Left at the End of the World (director Avi Nesher).
The International Programme has also secured screenings of recent French films, and Guillaume Colin, the director of the French Institute in Zagreb and adviser for cooperation and cultural activities at the French Embassy, said that the 65th edition of Pula Film Festival is sure to offer an exquisite programme to the audience. It includes as many as 13 French films, showing all the richness and diversity of French production: feature and short films, animated and live-action films, youth films, while the programme will also give a nod to the beginnings of film screenings at the Arena with the screening of the romance drama Mayerling, first screened in 1938. Colin also underscored that Pula Film Festival is again proving to be the inevitable meeting place of all lovers of the seventh art, and wished the entire team success.
Festival director Gordana Restović, continuing in the tone of history, announced that the 80th anniversary of the first screening at Arena will be celebrated by a dedication to films screened in 1938 in this year’s festival catalogue. Restović also emphasised the projects that were announced last year are now ready to be presented to the public. This year’s Festival will present the second edition of the printed version of the Time Machine, dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Festival. The publication brought together nine writers who have present4ed their own perspective of the key moments of Pula Film Festival. An announcement was made for the online publishing of the Film Index - a comprehensive project containing more than 800 films which have competed for the Golden Arenas over 65 years. It is a festival film database of sorts, cataloguing the directors, crews, edition of screening, and awards, allowing searches in terms of the year or title. Another novelty is the Employee Index, a project arising from a public call aimed to mark the contribution of all those who have been involved in the making of Pula Film Festival over the years. To celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Festival, the integral edition of Vjesnik u srijedu from 1955, which was entirely dedicated to the 3rd Pula Film Festival, will be printed in cooperation with the Croatian State Archives.
You can check the photo gallery from the press conference HERE.
