ZAGREBDOX 2024: A Month Left to Its 20th Birthday!

More than 1,700 entered films, of which as many as sixty are Croatian documentaries, form the basis on which the 20th ZagrebDox is built. From a project launched by a handful of passionate documentary enthusiasts under the baton of Nenad Puhovski, this Zagreb festival has turned into a key regional and global venue for contemporary documentaries over the course of two decades. It is a festival that is one of only forty worldwide whose films compete for the annual award of the European Film Academy in the documentary film category; it is a festival that has been visited by 350,000 visitors so far. Over 2,800 films were shown at almost 3,000 screenings, and more than 6,500 foreign and domestic guests arrived: filmmakers, professionals and journalists.   The 20th edition of ZagrebDox will show the best recent titles and almost exclusively world, continental, regional and Croatian premieres. But before we give stage to the films: a few words about the new outfit! The new website is about to see the light of day soon, but the new visuals are doing it right now! Klasja Habjan, Zita Nakić and Andrea Šumberac, or Klasja, Zita & Andrea, designed and realized a creative, fun and attractively vibrant visual identity that anticipates and evokes the unquestionably best choice this April! More than a hundred films, even more guests and a big novelty in the industry section, ZagrebDox Pro, are just some of the arguments for the high expectations of the audience and the optimism of the organizers.   The film that will open the 20th ZagrebDox on April 14 in Kaptol Boutique Cinema theatres has not yet been revealed, but it is already known that in Zagreb we will be watching the winners of the world’s most important film festivals. Cannes winner Four Daughters by Kaouther Ben Hania was also among the nominated films for this year’s Oscar, and double winner of IDFA, the world’s most important documentary festival, 1489 by Shoghakat Vardanyana arrives in Zagreb with a deeply intimate personal story. From the recently wrapped-up Berlinale comes the extremely interesting, controversial and two-award-winning No Other Land, which led to death threats to its courageous authors. From the north of Europe comes the Norwegian A New Kind of Wilderness directed by Silja Evensmo Jacobsen, which swept the jury at this year’s Sundance. Nemanja Vojinović’s film Bottlemen caused a similar effect with the jury in Sarajevo, where he won the Heart last year.   After these attractive film slices that will lead to the birthday cake of the 20th ZagrebDox, the preparation of the snack called ZagrebDox Pro, which revolves around documentary series, is in full swing. Authors from all over the world have applied for the development of their projects, and six of them will try to learn, find out and absorb as much knowledge as possible from relevant national and international authors and producers with amazing insights into this type of production in five days. As so many times before: ZagrebDox is once again making pioneering steps in the documentary film festival world!   ZagrebDox takes place with the support of the City of Zagreb, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, the Kultura nova Foundation, the Croatian Film Directors Guild and the Tourist Board of the City of Zagreb.