Day two of the festival is also the start of the 19th edition of ZagrebDox Pro: Dox of War. Eight projects from Greece, Croatia, Canada, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine have been selected, with a theme focus on the question “How to film a war?” The programme is implemented in association with the Close Up initiative – a tailor-made training and development event. Sigal Yehuda, the founder of Close Up, will give a masterclass for the participants, and the workshop mentors are John Appel, the co-founder of Close Up and lecturer, and Hans Robert Eisenhauer, a special expert and collaborator on the project.

Close Up is a training, development, and mentorship program for documentary filmmakers from Southwest Asia and North Africa. Close Up is an independent non-profit organization based in Brussels, Belgium, founded by five independent partners including Sigal Yehuda, Ahmet Boyacioglu, Bruni Burres, John Appel and Vincent Melilli. Positioned at the intersection of arts, media, social change, and peace-building, Close Up is one of the only initiative of its kind in the region, creating a transformational experience for emerging filmmakers, coming from diverse ethnic, religious, cultural, and political backgrounds, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.

Since its initiation in 2019, Close Up has supported the development of 60+ feature-length documentary projects and worked with 90+ emerging documentary filmmakers from the region of Southwest Asia and North Africa. Films that are developed in the Close Up program received prestigious international support and grants, including financial support from the Sundance Institute, Catapult Film Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, IDFA Bertha Fund, Hot Docs Cross Current, The Whickers Foundation, Berlinale World Cinema Fund, Doha Film Institute, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, and the Swedish Film Institute, to name a few.