If you find yourself near Fužine and looking for interesting activities to fill your day, Friday at Cinehill awaits full of film-loving events.
As always, we start the morning on a light note, with a colourful selection of shorts. At 10:30 a.m. at Mak Cinema as the part of the CDFG Campus we’ll watch films made by FAMU students, followed by another block of the best shorts from the CineCorto international competition at Bauer Cinema at the 11 a.m.
At the same time at Golik Cinema, catch up on what you may have missed with a second screening of the intriguing neo-noir Islands directed by Jan Ole Gerster.
Family fun awaits you at 11:30 a.m. at Mak Cinema, with a humorous documentary classic, which was the most watched film in Zagreb in 1974, Animals Are Beautiful People, directed by Jamie Uys (director of The Gods Must Be Crazy).
At 1 p.m. at Bauer Cinema get ready for the provocative Romance directed by Catherine Breillat, this year’s recipient of the festival’s honorary Maverick Award. The film follows Marie, school teacher who gets informed by her fiancé that there will be no more sex, which makes her seek fulfilment in a series of sexual encounters with other men.
Take a break from the movie screen in the company of Scar, the hawk, and Braco, the owl. At 1 p.m. at Rakov Jarak meet the birds of prey and learn how owls see in the dark, why hawks can’t stand technology, and what friendship between humans and birds of prey looks like.
At 1:30 p.m. at Mak Cinema don’t miss the suspenseful documentary Lupi Nostri, about a Swiss village divided over the wolf situation. The film depicts the schism between advocates and opponents of this impressive animal, touching on themes of coexistence, fear, and the fine line between nature conservation and conflict with it. Admission is free. Immediately afterwards, at 3 p.m. at Rakov Jarak, join the Cinetalk titled Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?, in which wolf protection experts reveal everything you’ve ever wanted to know about these magnificent beasts that inhabit Gorski Kotar.
We wouldn’t be a very dog-friendly festival if we didn’t bring you this year’s winner of the Palm Dog Award! At 3 p.m. catch the meditative Icelandic feature The Love That Remains. So, come over to Bauer Cinema and find out how Panda, the dog earned this prestigious acting award.
The Visions of the Future program continues at 3:30 p.m. at Mak Cinema, with the Taiwanese The Hole by cult director Tsai Ming-liang. This deadpan quarantine sci-fi musical follows a man and a woman in a city evacuated amid the pandemic of the “Taiwan Flu”.
We discover the dangers of artificial intelligence in the Swiss sci-fi family drama Electric Child, which is showing at 5 p.m. at Golik Cinema. To save his seriously ill newborn son, Sonny develops an artificial superintelligence, whose growing power starts to pose a threat to all of humanity.
We talk to this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Jafar Panahi, at 5 p.m. at Rakov Jarak.
At 6 p.m. at Bauer Cinema a double treat awaits you. The taut and emotionally charged Hungarian moral drama Growing Down follows Sandor, a widowed father who faces a harrowing moral dilemma when his son causes a serious accident that kills his new partner’s daughter: expose the truth and risk sending his child to juvenile detention, or conceal it to protect him? The screening is preceded by the short Astro, about a telephone psychic who starts working at a morally dubious spiritual call centre.
On the program at 6:30 p.m. at Mak Cinema is the fascinating Croatian documentary The World’s Best Film Professor, about a scandalous story that centres around a beloved Zagreb professor of film. Steven Spielberg, an experimental treatment in the USA, 15,000 euros and accusations of fraud – this incredible drama has it all. The documentary is paired with the screening of this year’s winner of the Golden Arena for Best Student Film, Jan Krevatin’s short Greek Apricots.
We light the bonfire at 8:35 p.m. with Jafar Panahi, and then walk to the Damside Theatre together, where we will watch his latest film and this year’s Palme d’Or winner, It Was Just an Accident. The screening will be preceded by the Maverick Honorary Award ceremony.
Everyone staying at Rakov Jarak, in the magical greenery of the Cinema in the Forest, will get to see the favourite of numerous festival audiences and juries’ and Italy’s 2025 Oscar contender, Vermiglio. This intimate drama follows the family of a village teacher at the end of World War II, whose lives are upended when Sicilian deserter Pietro arrives in their small mountain town.
We end the night in a musical daze of DJ Mario Kovač’s signature repertoire.
