After two challenging years, temporary relocation to new dates, and new (old) spaces, ZagrebDox marks its coming of age in the spring term by returning to the Kaptol Boutique Cinema! With the belief that we are achieving signs of stability, as well as offering visitors the best conditions for watching the best current documentary stories from around the world, the ZagrebDox program resonates with events around us, reflecting everything that is happening in the world today.
The adult, 18th edition of ZagrebDox will be held from April 3 to 10 and offer the audience to step into numerous life stories, situations, relationships, and parts of the world in cinemas that are today, more than ever, less accessible and determined by numerous restrictions. With eighty film achievements, the audience will be able to question the meaning of divisions, borders, wars, individual responsibilities, crises as a consequence of the functioning of the system, but also the importance of contact, relationships, communication, coexistence, independence, individuality, and coping.
Director of ZagrebDox, Nenad Puhovski. (Photo: Marin Tironi/PIXSELL)
Thirty documentary film achievements will be featured in the international and regional competition of the ZagrebDox competition program, while other films are distributed in official programs such as Biographical Dox, Masters of Dox, Teen Dox, and the always popular programs Controversial Dox and State of Things.
The competition program brings many films recognized at festivals around the world: A Night of Knowing Nothing is a debut film by director Payal Kapadia that speaks through the form of letters about the forbidden love of two Indian students separated due to belonging to different castes. This hybrid of documentary and fiction through an intimate story sheds light on broader socio-political issues in today’s India, and at the Cannes Film Festival won the Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary.
Questioning the notion of the “Chinese dream” today and exploring capitalist hyperproduction and the paradox of progress, the film Ascension by American author Jessica Kingdon, an Oscar-nominated documentary and the best documentary of the Tribeca Film Festival, takes us to China. At the mentioned festival, the author was also awarded for the best documentary debutante.
The shocking multi-award-winning Swedish documentary Sabaya by director Hogir Hirori takes us to the most dangerous Islamic State (ISIS) camp in the Middle East, following a group of young men who risk their own lives to save girls trapped as sex slaves. This impressive film won about 15 awards, including the best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as at international film festivals in Moscow, Stockholm, Hong Kong, and DocAviv.
At ZagrebDox, we will also show the current winner of the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) in the Envision competition program – Lebanese author Karim Kassem’s film Octopus, a metaphysical film study of the consequences of the explosion in the port of Beirut.
A new film by the renowned Polish author Paweł Łoziński, well-known to the festival, The Balcony Movie is also part of an international competition program. For two years, Łoziński used a camera to record neighbors, passers-by, and random visitors from his own balcony. The film won the Grand Prix in the Critics Week Award category at the Locarno International Film Festival.
The debut film Father by Chinese author Wei Deng, a portrait of two generations in the director’s family, depicts tradition, change, violence, and alienation in Chinese society. At the DOK Leipzig festival, he was awarded the Golden Dove.
In addition to the film program, ZagrebDox includes the ZagrebDox PRO platform dedicated to the education of film professionals, as well as a number of additional content in the form of special screenings, discussions, presentations, about which you can find more information on how to apply here.
Applications to volunteer at the 18th ZagrebDox are open until March 15 and you can find more information here.
More news about this year’s ZagrebDox can be followed on the official website of the festival.
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