Nineteenth ZagrebDox Programme Presented: A Total of 40 Films in the Official Competition

Twenty films compete for the official festival award The Big Stamp in the international documentary film category, and the same number of titles run in regional competition. The programme of this year’s ZagrebDox was presented at a press conference by the director and head programmer Nenad Puhovski and producer Hrvoje Pukšec.

“This year’s ZagrebDox takes place in times when the bad years are (hopefully) behind us, and the uncertain ones are ahead. Aware of this, we chose to return to an old normal, but still half expecting possible surprises. Therefore, we want to fill that space with about a hundred documentaries that address the totality of the world we live in, because we always wanted to offer our audience as wide a selection of amazing films as possible. With the return of the popular Happy Dox and Musical Globe sections, we also introduced new ones, for example Green Dox, dedicated to environmental issues. We also introduced new awards such as the one for short documentary, and we are especially proud of the fact that the European Film Academy included us in a small number of prestigious festivals whose winners directly compete for the European Oscar. We are impatiently waiting to share all this with our audience and to, once again, attend screenings, discussions about films and the topics they address. Welcome to the 19th ZagrebDox!” said Nenad Puhovski.

This year’s International Competition brought together a number of film titles dealing with globally burning socio-political issues. As expected, one of the hot topics today is the war in Ukraine, and Eastern Front by Vitaly Mansky and Yevhen Titarenko shows us the first six months of the war in Ukraine through the eyes of Yevhen, a member of a volunteer medical battalion whose task is to provide first aid on the front line. The Hamlet Syndrome by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski also takes us to Ukraine, but a few months before the Russian invasion. Through the portrayal of five young people who use the stage as a platform to express their sadness and trauma through the well-known question “to be or not to be”, it offers us a powerful portrait of a generation dealing with the trauma of war, which is now both their present and future. In every war there are people who are not subject to propaganda and the general atmosphere of fear, as evidenced by Masha and Ilya, the main protagonists of the film Ice under His Feet by Kirill Nenashev, who organise anti-war protest actions in Russian cities, support their comrades who are behind bars and try in every way to change the opinions of their relatives, friends and ordinary passers-by.

What does it mean to be a woman? In her observational documentary Dream’s Gate, shown at the Berlinale, Iranian director Negin Ahmadi decides to look for answers to that question in an encounter with female Kurdish fighters, while Violet Du Feng’s Hidden Letters reveals to us the secret Nushu language, which was developed by Chinese women, who were forbidden to read and write, as a secret system of support, hope and survival. The film was honoured at numerous festivals; including Tribeca FF and BFI London FF. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by the Oscar winner Laura Poitras, nominated for this year’s Oscar in the feature documentary category, but also winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, is an emotional story about the internationally known artist and activist Nan Goldin told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, groundbreaking photographs and rare footage. Apolonia, Apolonia by Danish director Lea Glob, winner of the main award at IDFA, is a fascinating portrait of Apolonia Sokol, a young woman trying to find her place in the art world, and Alis, by Clara Weiskopf and Nicolás van Hemelryck, which won the Crystal Bear in the category Generation 14plus at the Berlin Film Festival, and at Sheffield Doc /Fest – Youth Jury Award, takes us to a Colombian shelter for teenage girls and to the merciless streets of Bogotá, where we meet young women fighting to break the cycle of violence and embrace a brighter future. Theo Montoya takes us to Colombia too, but now to Medellin, with his film Anhell69, which explores the dreams, doubts and fears of a destroyed generation. The film won the main award in Leipzig, at one of the most important European documentary film festivals.

We shall stay a little longer in South America, from which a number of excellent titles arrive at this year’s Dox. Dry Ground Burning, by Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós which won the International Dox Award at Dokufest, as well as awards at festivals Cinema du Réel and IndieLisboa IFF, takes us to the Brazilian favelas. Andreia confidently leads a powerful motorcycle gang through the favela of Sol Nascente, a large community on the outskirts of Brasilia. She belongs to Gasolineiras de Kebradas, a group of women who take matters into their own hands by refining illegally drilled oil in their own facility. Calling Cabral, by Welket Bungué, winner of a special mention at the Sheffield Doc Fest and Jury Awards at DocLisboa, shows us layers of language and behaviour to celebrate the historical and intergenerational complexity that inhabits Guinea-Bissau. The setting of the film A Robust Heart, by Martín Benchimol, is a slaughterhouse in Argentina. With fresh blood on their white aprons, the butchers engage in short conversations that touch on fathers and children, revealing their motivations and deepest fears in the process.

The topic of climate change always is, and should be, relevant. In International Competition, there are three films dealing with this topic. Haulout, by Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev, takes us to the remote shores of the Siberian Arctic where a lonely man, devastated, witnesses unexpected changes due to the warming of the sea and increasing temperatures. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2023 in the short documentary category. Aralkum, a short film by Mila Zhluktenko and Daniel Asadi Faezi, winner of the award for the best short film at Visions du Réel and the special mention of the jury at Beldocs, interweaving different cinematic textures reimagines the dried up Aral Sea, allowing an old fisherman to set sail for the last time, and Mountain Flesh, by Valentina Shasivari, presented at IDFA, describes the beginning of the end of a textbook example of an idyll called – a Swiss village, of course, also due to climate change.

Rojek – by Zaynê Akyol, the winner of the jury special mention at Hot Docs and a special mention at the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival, tries to trace the beginning, rise and fall of the Islamic State (ISIS) through the personal stories of members of the Islamic State from all over the world and their wives imprisoned in prison camps, who share a common dream: the establishment of a caliphate. They are difficult to understand, just like the Somali furniture designer Abdi’s own violent past, whose story is told in the documentary Neighbour Abdi by his neighbour, director Douwe Dijksta. Violence is also the theme of Angie Vinchito’s film Manifesto, which won the main award at IDFA for the best film in the Envision Competition. This title is made up entirely of shocking videos posted by Russian teenagers on social media. Manifesto is a disturbingly dark mosaic, showing how aggression and oppression are unconsciously passed on to the next generation.

Have you kept track of your grey hair? Number of kisses you exchanged? How many times you have flown in your dreams? Maybe you haven’t, and maybe the film Subtotals by Mohammadreza Farzad, will encourage you to do something similar. The last film we are presenting in international competition, Wild Wounded Animals, by Jakob Pagel Andersen, is a deeply personal story about fatherhood, anxiety and breaking vicious circles.

Twenty films are competing for the Big Stamp in regional competition this year, and they touch on a wide range of topics, from ecology to family and interpersonal relationships, to dealing with the past, and to the most important unimportant thing in the world, football.

Eight authors directed the Croatian documentary Eight Chapters, which will have its world premiere at the 19th ZagrebDox. Jasmina Beširević, Tonći Gaćina, Dalija Dozet, Anja Koprivšek, Petar Vukičević, Judita Gamulin, Katarina Lukec and Tiha K. Gudac lead us through eight decades of life of eight female characters, starting with the youngest, who is five, to the oldest at 85. The eight chapters are an omnibus that gives an opportunity to observe the emergence of identity and the overcoming of obstacles facing women of all generations, whether they are mothers or not. Mother’s Milk, a film by Isaac Knights-Washbourn, shown at DOK Leipzig and Jihlava IFF, is a gentle meditation on motherhood and the chains that bind, but also suffocate us. The Love Room, by the North Macedonian director Suzana Dinevski, is a social portrait of two families, and gives a look into the intimate world of conjugal visits in the most notorious Idrizovo prison in North Macedonia and the effects this has on the family and the world around them. And what can an unexpected lottery win bring or take away from a family? Director Eneos Çarka brings us the story of one of the greatest loves, the one between father and daughter, in the film The Silence of the Banana Trees, shown at the Festival dei Popoli and the winner of The Tank Prize at Fipadoc. In her directorial debut Scenes with My Father, Biserka Šuran enters into a conversation with her father about their shared past, the history of the Balkans and what it means for their identity. The film won the jury prize at Trieste FF. Lina, a film by Jasmina Beširević, takes us into the world of a nine-year-old girl who goes through one of the most traumatic experiences in a child’s life, her parents’ divorce.

Nikolaus Geyrhalter in the film Matter out of Place follows the trails of garbage around the planet and sheds light on the endless struggle of people to gain control over huge amounts of waste. The film won the significant Pardo Verde WWF award at the prestigious Locarno Festival. The intimate film Between Revolutions, directed by Vlad Petri, which won the FIPRESCI award for best film in the Forum section in Berlin, questions social taboos, authority, religion and the roles of women in Iran and Romania, two countries where history was written almost exclusively by men. Deserters by Damir Markovina, winner of the award for the best film of Central and Eastern Europe at the Jihlava festival, is a hybrid documentary essay about a lost generation, their mutual relations, difficult choices and the answer to the most difficult question of the war: to stay or to leave? Bojan Stojčić’s film Hope Hotel Phantom 27 years after the Dayton Peace Agreement documents the traces of this historical event, a dream that turned into a nightmare. What the Balkans look like today, where the conflict took place twenty-five years ago, and whether ‘The Hague justice’ had meaning and significance for those who had the worst of it, is investigated in – The Investigator by Viktor Portel, shown at Jihlava IFF. Horror Vacui, by Boris Poljak, shown at IFF Rotterdam, with its single-frame sequences and free, associative editing style, sends a warning about the ever-increasing hypermilitarization of the world we live in and what it causes to the human psyche. The Adventures of Gigi the Law by Alessandro Comodin, winner of the special jury award at Locarno IFF follows Gigi, a policeman who, facing an inexplicable wave of suicides, sets out to explore a strange world between reality and fantasy, while keeping his heart open to love, while the short documentary film Knin - Zadar by Melita Vrsaljko tells the story of the everyday life of a Benkovac shunter working on the railway station, through which passenger trains no longer pass.

Two documentaries in regional competition touched on the subject of football. Balls by Gorana Jovanović reveals to us a story that takes place in almost complete media silence, about an indoor football tournament that has been gathering members of the armies of six former Yugoslav republics every year for more than a decade, and film Enemies 86, by Josipa Krčelić, brings us the confession of an impulsive indoor football fan.

In the movie Ribs, Farah Hasanbegović resorts to animation in order to search for the origin of those sensations that accompany us all our lives, whether we like it or not, and through eloquent pencil strokes, presents a sensory meditation on the material dimension of our feelings, and director David Gašo is led by an anonymous exhibitionist through a public sex forest located in the middle of a city park in the film Thicket.