ZagrebDox Thursday

After the sold-out screenings of the festival’s ‘election’ Wednesday, in which tickets for Pero Kvesić’s House in Kraljevec, Werner Herzog’s White Diamond and a film and panel about John Galliano moderated by Jelena Veljača were sold out, and the premiere of Vladimira Spindler’s Genes of My Children was also seen the stairs in order to witness this authentic family film of universal value, Thursday at the 20^th ZagrebDox will be marked, in addition to the continuation of the parade of attractive films, by two interesting masterclasses open to the public.

A free screening at 2 pm in theatre 2 today brings Subject 817 about the unusual Ural events and the inhabitants affected by them, and Between the Rains, a beautifully shot depiction of the Kenyan Turkana tribe in the light of climate change. Both films compete in the most prestigious, International Competition.

At 3 pm in theatre 4, the same category offers creatively processed childhood memories in Au Revoir, Pugs and the inevitable family intimacy of Ohad Milstein’s Monogamia. At the same time, in theatre 5, as part of the My Fave Dox section, The Steel Mill Café, by one of the leading Croatian masters of documentary film, Goran Dević, is being shown. The film, which has reached the status of a modern classic in only seven years of its existence, is an observational treatment of the owner, workers and visitors of a coffee shop in Sisak on the eve of its closure, which reflects the end of the industrial ambitions of a society and a city.

At 3:30 pm, the last chance to see the excellent titles in Regional Competition: Ivan Faktor’s Triangle Straight Line Point and Grand Prize by Anja Koprivšek (theatre 1), i.e. for Petra Seliškar’s Body (theatre 3). Regional competition continues with a conversation with the author, at 4 pm in theatre 2 with Arsenie. An Amazing Afterlife by Alexandru Solomon – a witty fictional pilgrimage into the market, political and religious exploitation of the completely human life of the future saint of the Romanian church, around which interesting forms of idolatry developed.

At 5 pm, another contemporary master and friend of ZagrebDox, Erik Gandini, sends us After Work – a reflexive and humane review of the tectonic changes that automation and artificial intelligence bring to the field of human work. The film brings together protagonists and stories from various parts of the world, covering numerous professions that are threatened with extinction. In the same program segment State of Affairs and at the same time, but in theatre 5, it will be possible to see Paz Schwartz’s Telling Nonie about the meeting and reconciliation of the daughter of a Palestinian terrorist with one of his Israeli executioners.

From 5:30 pm (theatre 1), Newsreel 242 – Sunny Railways by the Slovenian director Nika Autor and Seagull by David Lušičić will additionally contribute to Regional Competition’s extraordinary day. Newsreel 242 with the help of archival material talks about youth work actions, more precisely the one on the construction of the Šamac-Sarajevo railway in 1947, but also about the further fate of that route in the war and the aftermath, until it was shut down and turned into a migrant route. David Lušičić, in his eagerly awaited work, succeeds in finding new perspectives on the subject of Tito’s ship, which has already been covered in films – this documentary essay provides an insight into the unique everyday life of a sailor through the testimony of an officer from Galeb’s last voyage, following at the same time an attempt to reconstruct it and an ambivalent attitude towards its historical heritage. The audience will have the opportunity to talk with the director after the screening.

Also at 17:30 (theatre 3), also in Regional Competition and also with a conversation with the author, Bottlemen by Nemanja Vojinović is a Belgrade eco-western that is interested in bottle collectors at one of Europe’s largest landfills – an apocalyptic landscape created above the remains of an ancient civilization, and which could soon go down in history itself. The film is followed by a DoXXL panel under the title “Documentaries against the erosion of workers’ rights”, in which Goran Dević, Tena Gojić, Srđan Kovačević and Nemanja Vojinović participate.

The sumptuous discursive program of ZagrebDox Thursday includes, however, masterclasses open to the public as part of ZagrebDox PRO: Hanka Kastelicova (“The Art of Storytelling: Do Documentary Series Change the Game?”, 1:30 pm, Dokukino KIC) and Marc Isaacs (“Performing Reality and Limits of Observation”, 18, Dokukino KIC).

At 6 pm, the new Teen Dox I Am Someone, an inspiring story about the children of Brazil, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Palestine selected for the World Football Championship of street children in Qatar, will be presented, after the screening in theatre 2, by its author Jamillah van der Hulst.

At 7:00 pm (theatre 4), last night’s sold-out Genes of My Children by Vladimira Spindler is being rerun, in which the author, her daughter, Sanja Pilić and Tihana Škrinjarić reveal the beautiful and less beautiful sides of family life and history, artistic creation and intergenerational relations. Another, Danish biographical dox A Storm Foretold (dir. Christoffer Guldbrandsen) simultaneously offers in theatre 5 a stunning portrait of Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump, an influential and dangerous figure in American politics.

At 19:30 (theatre 1) it’s time for a new music dox, this time about the Yu group, which Darko Lungulov dealt with in the film Electric Yu-topia, a work that creatively uses archival material and family Super 8 recordings to provide not only a look into the career of the long-standing group, but above all a depiction of the family sacrifice of the Jelić brothers who became a part of history itself.

At 19:30 in theatre 3, the premiere of the new, autobiographical film by excellent cinematographer and director Silvestar Kolbas Our Children, produced by Factum, will be shown. Some of the questions that Kolbas asks are: How do children affect his feelings and attitudes and the relationship between him and his wife? How does he influence or has influenced each of his children so far? What kind of relationship does he have with which child and does he give them all the same amount of love? The audience will be able to ask the director the remaining questions after the screening.

At 8 pm in International Competition (theatre 2), and followed by a Q&A session, we will enjoy Echo of You by Zara Zerny – a poetic and romantic senior etude on the theme of a group of Danish old men whose voices the author gently joins into a chorus and intertwines with abstract, dreamy pictures, music and artistic interpretations of their inner lives.

International competition continues at 21:00 in theatre 4, first with the medium-length Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black) by Matthew Thorne and Derik Lynch, a member of the Australian Yankunytjatjara people who leaves the oppression of white urban life in Adelaide and returns to his remote community in search of spiritual healing. In the Berlinale award-winning film, we watch his community reconstruct memories using visual, verbal and physical elements. Next comes Dahomey by Mati Diop. The film about the return of 26 objects of the title kingdom from Paris to the country of origin, today’s Republic of Benin, deals with the influence of the colonial past on the present and the multi-layered character of that heritage. Finally, from 9 pm until late at night in theatre 5, we meander with Peter Mettler through the rivers of his existentialist and family film-essay While the Green Grass Grows.

The controversial dox Johatsu – Into Thin Air (dir. Andreas Hartmann, Arata Mori) at 21:30 (theatre 1) brings an incredible story about Japanese companies for disappearing, or changing identities. Chronologically last in ZagrebDox’s abundant film menu, Thursday at 10 pm (theatre 3) Cabin Pressure (dir. Eszter Nagy, Sára Czira) speaks about Hungarian-Russian, straight-gay co-parenting in sunny Barcelona.