November the 16th, 2025 – The film and TV history of this country doesn’t begin and end with GoT and Star Wars, and the Croatian Hollywood project intends to shed light on it all.
As 24sata/Davor Lugaric writes, Croatia is actually a little Hollywood, these are the words of Đelo Hadžiselimović from seven years ago, which inspired director and producer Bruno Grgurić and director Darko Duda to embark on a unique project. They first came to him with the idea of filming a documentary series dedicated to the rich film history Croatia boasts, but when Đelo uttered the aforementioned words, it led them to explore a somewhat different direction.
They continued to develop their concept, which soon grew into something much larger than a documentary series. Through plenty of effort and research, they discovered an almost incredible number of international productions that have chosen Croatia as a film backdrop over the decades. Since then, the idea of a documentary series has grown into a comprehensive national project aptly called Croatian Hollywood.
The commendable Croatian Hollywood project has been conceived as a system that connects film locations across the country through information boards with QR codes. “At each location where a significant scene from a film was filmed, we’ll place a special board. By scanning the QR code, anyone who happens to stumble upon it will be able to see exactly what scene it references, and exactly where it was filmed. The boards are interconnected, so they can lead the user to the next film location, either according to geographical sequence or thematic connection of the films,” explained Grgurić and Duda, with Đelo adding that it’s quite incredible just how many films have been shot in this country, and people aren’t even aware of the majority of them.
In addition to the author’s team, many expert collaborators from across Croatia and the world have been involved and directly participating in the Croatian Hollywood project. They include an array of film professionals, historians and technical advisors who worked on many of these famous film productions shot here over the years.
The goal of the Croatian Hollywood project is not only to revive the incredibly rich film history of Croatia, but also to encourage a new form of cultural tourism, one that combines curiosity, education and emotion, according to the project’s masterminds.
Croatian Hollywood is therefore unfolding and becoming a story that celebrates Croatian film locations, as well as the return of film to the centre of public interest. Since the 1950s, many very well known and much loved films have been shot in various locations across Croatia, including some cult blockbusters and Oscar-winning titles.
The idea that was born out of a mere conversation with Đelo Hadžiselimović and developed through joint work is now growing into a national project that works to connect the past and the present, film and reality, art and tourism.
