Guest Speakers

Igor Bezinović is a filmmaker born in Rijeka, which is now part of Croatia, but at that time belonged to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, before that partly the Kingdom of Italy and partly the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (and before that the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), before that the Free State of Fiume, before that the Italian Regency of Carnaro, before that Austria-Hungary… His films include The Blockade (Oktavijan prize for best Croatian documentary in 2012), Veruda (Oktavijan prize for best Croatian documentary in 2015) and A Brief Excursion (Big Golden Arena prize for best Croatian feature in 2017), along with many shorts of all shapes and sizes. His work has been shown internationally at events including IFF Rotterdam, DOK Leipzig, IDFF Jihlava, CPH:DOX, Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, Venice Biennale of Architecture (with Hrvoslava Brkušić for Pulska grupa), Museum of the Moving Image and the Guanajuato IFF. He graduated in film directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and in Philosophy, Sociology and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. He is a member of The Croatian Film Directors’ Guild and the judo club Black Belt.

Vanja Jambrovic graduated in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb in 2005 and in 2011 she also graduated in Film and Theatre Production from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.

Since 2009, she has been making films with Restart as a delegate producer. Vanja’s track record includes more than 20 films of all shapes and sizes. Her films have circled the globe, having been screened in competition at IDFA, Hot Docs, Toronto IFF, Visions du Reel, Fid Marseille, Karlovy Vary IFF, Sarajevo FF and hundreds more. Vanja is also a Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Grantee, for the feature documentary project “Museum of the Revolution” directed by Srđan Keča (2020).

«Srbenka» directed by Nebojša Slijepčević, which she produced has been pre-selected for the EFA Awards in the best documentary category in 2018 and won Doc Allianze Award for the best documentary that same year.

With her projects Vanja participated in several professional workshops such as: EAVE (2015), Producers on the Move (Cannes 2014), Robert Bosch Coproduction Prize Germany Eastern Europe (Berlin, 2013), Berlinale Talent Campus (Berlin, 2013), Emerging Producers 2012 (Jihlava), Sarajevo Talent Campus (Sarajevo, 2012), EURODOC (France 2010) and many more.

As a production company, Restart is focused mostly on documentaries. Restart is a multi-faceted organization, also organizing educational programmes, it runs a distribution label (Restart label) and operates DOKUKINO KIC – a small art house cinema in the centre of Zagreb dedicated to creative documentary.

Vanja also runs the Restart Laboratory – a platform for first time directors, as well as Restart Masterclass – a yearlong programme dedicated to connecting world-class filmmakers with Croatian audiences through a series of interactive lectures.

Since 2020, Vanja teaches a course on documentary production at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.

Peter Kerekes was born in Košice, Slovakia, and graduated from the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, earning a degree in film directing. In 2003, he directed and produced his debut feature documentary, 66 Seasons, which became a festival hit and won several awards, including the Best Film Award at DocAviv. His next feature documentary, Cooking History (2009), received the Prix Arte nomination for Best Documentary at the European Film Awards, among other plaudits. Kerekes's 2013 feature documentary, Velvet Terrorists (ZagrebDox 2014), co-directed by Pavol Pekarčík and Ivan Ostrochovský, won the FEDEORA Award at the Karlovy Vary IFF and celebrated its international premiere at the Berlinale Forum, winning the Tagesspiegel Readers’ Award. Kerekes also produced the omnibus documentary Occupation 1968 (2018), and co-produced The White World According to Daliborek (2017) and The Wind. A Documentary thriller (2019, ZagrebDox 2020).

Florijan Lacko is a designer by profession and cultural scholar by calling. He graduated in Cultural Studies in  2020 at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka. During his study he was an active member  and project manager of the IKS Association and the editor-in-chief of the magazine Drugost. He currently  works in design and marketing with the Vizualia agency he launched early last year.

Klara Petrović is an independent curator and member of the KUĆĆA collective. Between 2016 and 2021 she has been active in the KONTEJNER association as a curator, producer and project manager and since 2017 she has been working in the Organ Vida photo association as a curator and coordinator of exhibitions and programmes. She is currently working as a curator of the 36th Youth Salon – PARASYTES, taking place April through June 2022.

Nenad Puhovski was born in Zagreb, where he obtained a degree in Sociology, Philosophy and Film Directing. He made his first film when he was 15. As a professional director, he has worked on over 250 theatre, film and TV productions. His documentaries focus on social problems and fine arts. In 1997 he founded Factum, which soon became the largest and most influential independent documentary production company in Croatia. He has produced over 60 documentary films that have been screened and awarded at international festivals worldwide. He has also won four Best Production Awards at the Croatian Film Days. In 2004, he founded ZagrebDox – the largest documentary film festival in the region – where he continues to serve as director. In addition to teaching in Zagreb, where he launched a new MA documentary program, he taught documentary film in many schools in Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Middle East and Africa. In 2009 he won the EDN Award for ‘outstanding contribution to the development of European documentary culture’. 

Rea Rajčić has a degree in production from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, where she also teaches. Her career in production began with work in cinema distribution and continued with a long stint as an associate with the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, managing the Cinema Project. She took part in EAVE marketing workshop, Locarno Industry Academy International 2017 and Emerging Producers 2020. A winner of the Young Producers Award at Sofia Film Festival 2016. She is currently developing and producing several film and TV projects with her own production company Eclectica.

Stacey Woelfel is a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and the director of the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the school. Woelfel has enjoyed more than 35 years of teaching and leading journalism students to become the best storytellers they can be. Woelfel has served the television news industry as national chairman of the Radio Television Digital News Association, national president of the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Journalism and national trustee and regional president of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He currently serves the documentary world as a screener for Columbia’s beloved True/False Film Fest, a screener for the St. Louis International Film Festival and a member of the board of the Kansas City Film Fest International. He is a winner of numerous regional and local awards.

Želimir Žilnik was born in 1942 in Niš, and he is living and working in Novi Sad, Serbia. He has written and directed numerous fiction and documentary films which have garnered many awards at national and international film festivals. He is one of the pioneers of the docu-drama genre. From the very beginning his films have focussed on contemporary issues, featuring social, political and economic assessments of everyday life: Newsreel on Village Youth, in Winter (1967), Little Pioneers (1968), The Unemployed (1968), June Turmoil (1969), Black Film (1971), Uprising in Jazak (1973). Žilnik’s fiction debut Early Works (1969) won the Golden Bear at Berlinale and four awards at Pula Film Festival. In 1995 his film Marble Ass won the prestigious Teddy Award at Berlinale. ZagrebDox has screened Žilnik’s films Logbook Serbistan (2015), Pirika on Film (2013) and Europe Next Door (2005), which won the Big Stamp. He was an International Jury member at ZagrebDox 2019. Žilnik’s latest films are The Most Beautiful Country in the World (2018) and Among the People: Life & Acting (2018).