Wednesday at ZagrebDox

After the eventful Tuesday, Wednesday at the 19th ZagrebDox brings new cinematic and discursive excitement, first of all the ‘reruns’, but free – Lina by Jasmina Beširević and Vlad Petri’s Between Revolutions are shown in theatre 2 at 3 p.m., theatre 4 at the same time screens Thicket by David Gašo and Suzana Dinevski’s Love Room, and in theatre 1 at 3:30 p.m. Giulia Giapponesi’s Bella Ciao is screened, a film that filled the auditorium with curious audiences on Monday.

Theatre 3 at 3:30 p.m. screens Girl Gang by Susanne Regine Meures, a revealing Swiss film about a German teenage influencer and the dark side of her success.

In theatre 5 at 3 p.m., the first screening of Boris Bakal’s Vitić Dances is scheduled, a film about the struggle for the reconstruction of a building (Vitić’s skyscraper), which thus becomes a metaphor for society. The central screening, along with a conversation with the author, is scheduled for Saturday.

In hall 2 at 5 p.m., followed by a Q&A with the director, we watch Luke McManus’s North Circular, an original black and white documentary musical about the history of Dublin and its inhabitants based on local folk music. In theatre 4 at 5 p.m., the new ZagrebDoXXL event presents the Tourism episode of the documentary series Good Economy by Đuro Gavran, one of the most award-winning authors in the festival’s history. The episode deals with the possibility of sustainable tourism in Croatia, a country that has never seriously considered the impact of this branch of the economy on the environment. After the screening, the panel “Entrepreneurship to Sustainable Life” will be held, with the participation of Đuro Gavran, Teo Petričević, Dražen Šimleša and Davorka Vidović. In theatre 5 in International Competition from 5 p.m. there is an opportunity to re-watch Mountain Flesh (dir. Valentina Shasivari) and Hidden Letters (dir. Violet Du Feng).

In the same competition in theatre 1 from 5:30 p.m., the Subtotal (dir. Mohammadreza Farzad), an Iranian family film-essay inspired by the story of Gregory Burnham and the novel by Édouard Levé, and composed of 8 mm home footage, and Alis (dir. Clare Weiskopf, Nicolás van Hemelryck), a Berlinale award-winning piece at the about Colombian teenage girls who, with the help of the therapeutic method of guided imagination, face violence and get an opportunity to dream of a better future.

In theatre 3 in Regional Competition at 5:30 p.m., followed by a Q&A with the authors, Ribs by Farah Hasanbegović is screened – an intimate and evocative animated documentary about guilt – and Viktor Portel’s Investigator – a Czech-Croatian film about Vladimír Dzur, an ICTY investigator who dealt with cases of Ovčara and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and who is now returning to the crime scenes and meeting surviving witnesses.

At 7:00 p.m. in theatre 2, three extremely interesting films from Regional Competition are combined in the same screening: Knin – Zadar (dir. Melita Vrsaljko), Horror vacui (dir. Boris Poljak) and Scenes with My Father (dir. Biserka Šuran). First-time director Vrsaljko shows the everyday life of her father, a switchman at the Benkovac railway station where time has stopped long ago, Poljak continues his brilliant informal observational ‘telephoto’ cycle with a film about global militarisation, and Šuran in the best Dutch documentary of 2022 (IDFA) and the winner of the festival in Trieste also deals with the relationship with his father through his memories of the abandoned homeland of Yugoslavia, but she does so in an apparently fascinating work that combines stylised sets, impressive landscape scenes and archival film. The authors of all the films will join the screening and have a chat with the audience afterwards.

In theatre 4 at 7 p.m. When Spring Came to Bucha is a poignant and intense, but artistically designed film that has resonated strongly on the European festival scene thanks to its immediacy and humane point of view, achieved by the quick response and sensibility of authors Mila Teshaieva and Marcus Lenz. Mila Teshaieva will talk to the audience about the experiences of the residents of Buča during and after the Russian attacks after the screening.

In theatre 5, at the same time, Black Mambas (dir. Lena Karbe) from the new section Green Dox is shown, a work about three young dark-skinned South African rangers who, in addition to poachers, have to deal with their country’s colonial heritage and difficult living conditions.

At 19:30 in theatre 1 in the Masters of Dox section, the new work of the master of New German Cinema Volker Schlöndorff The Forest Maker is a must-see, speaking about Tony Rinaud, an Australian agronomist whose innovative method of reforestation and nature restoration profoundly transformed and revitalised the agriculture of Niger and other African countries. Perhaps more than Rinaud, it is a film about the communities he helped fight desertification. The inspiring scenes of Africa are also the fruit of Schlöndorff’s collaboration with local filmmakers.

Another ZagrebDoXXL event will take place in theatre 3 at the same time – a screening of Eastern Front (dir. Vitaly Mansky, Yevhen Titarenko), a visceral film record of the experiences of Titarenko and his friends on the Ukrainian front lines. The film is competing in International Competition, and a more extensive conversation with Vitaly Mansky will be hosted by Dina Pokrajac after the screening.

At 9:00 p.m. in theatre 2, the second part of the diptych Scenes from Labudović Reels by Mila Turajlić, subtitled Ciné-Guerrillas, can be seen, along with a Q&A with the director. In theatre 5, the new film by the famous Rithy Panh, Everything Will Be OK, is simultaneously shown for the second and last time, while in theatre 4, in the Masters of Dox section, you can see Music for Black Pigeons by Danish legends Jørgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed – an intimate film about famous jazz musicians from various parts of the world in search of the meaning of music, musical universalism and camaraderie.

At 10 p.m., Neighbour Abdi and Dream Gate (theatre 1) from International Competition and Love Is not an Orange (theatre 3) from the State of Affairs section will be screened again.