Opening — the 64th Pula Film Festival

Under the starry Pula sky, in the setting of the famous Arena, the 64th Pula Film Festival opened with a screening of Stanislav Tomić’s film “Avalanche” (Lavina) and the customary spectacular fireworks. This year’s rich edition of the 64th Pula Film Festival featured 170 films, 88 premieres, 20 venues and 15 film programmes. Before the screening, the festival was declared open by Nina Obuljen Koržinjek, Minister of Culture in the Government of Croatia. Festival director Gordana Restović invited all guests and visitors to enjoy films under the stars again this year. “We tried to make the festival richer and fuller this year, and I believe we succeeded. Before us is a new Pula Film Festival, for each one is, in its own way, unrepeatable in its organisational and programmatic refinement,” said Mrs Restović.

Immediately after the opening words of director Gordana Restović, the Pula Arena was also addressed by artistic director Zlatko Vidačković, who proudly praised the diversity of this year’s film programme — the most extensive international programme in Pula, comprising 27 feature films (directed by Kaurismäki, Lee, Tornatore, Wajda and other notable directors) and 19 short films. The 64th Pula presents the largest Croatian programme to date, with sixteen feature fiction films, half of which are screened as premieres. Notably, half of the films were made in independent production and half through public calls of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC), which testifies to the vitality and tenacity of the independent scene, which HAVC fortunately supports through subsequent post-production grants.

This year too the Festival teems with rich accompanying programmes — exhibitions, concerts, workshops, the Pula Food Festival concept, as well as the specialised Pula PROfessional programme for film professionals, made up of lectures, round tables, panel discussions, book promotions and gatherings of professionals from the audiovisual industry. Thus, as part of the opening programmes of the 64th Pula Film Festival, the exhibition “Purple and Turquoise — the Art of Painting” by Predrag Peđa Milošević, an academic painter from Belgrade, was ceremonially opened on 13 July in the remarkable space of the Gallery of the Serbian Cultural Centre in Istria.

Stanislav Tomić’s film “Avalanche”, which opened the national programme of this year’s Pula Film Festival, has already earned the label of an “Almodóvar-style comedy”. It is a film that was originally meant to be a series but, by a turn of circumstances, became a film. The producer is Jozo Patljak, who, while introducing the film crew, said that the film’s story revolves around one female family. The leading “female role” fell to a man, Robert Ugrina, who plays alongside Ksenija Marinković. “Only a woman could step into the ring with her,” Ugrina said of the role, recounting how it was not especially demanding for him to play a woman. The rich cast of “Avalanche” includes Stojan Matavulj, Borko Perić, Žarko Radić, Goran Grgić, Miran Kurspahić and Sven Jakir, as well as actresses Ana Maras Harmander, Sara Stanić and Nina Violić.

The second film to be honoured with a screening at the opening of the 64th Pula was “ZG80”, directed by Igor Šeregi, which had already become a hit since it began showing in cinemas in June of the previous year. “It is a kind of prequel to the film Metastases, with the action set about a decade earlier in Belgrade,” said Šeregi, adding that this helped considerably in promoting the film. The film was shot in just 17 days, in Belgrade, Kragujevac and Pančevo. One of the screenwriters, Robert Cukina, told the press conference that he found inspiration for the story in events from his youth — he was, in fact, a member of the Bad Blue Boys. He announced that he was already working on a sequel whose action would be set in Zagreb.

The longest-running and largest national film festival has yet another distinction — the largest festival screen in Croatia, where, before over 10,000 people in the Arena from 15 to 22 July, festival premieres can be enjoyed under the stars at the same time.

The 64th Pula Film Festival closes on Saturday, 22 July, with a ceremonial awards presentation in the Pula Arena: the Grand Golden Arena for the best film of the Festival, the Golden Arena for directing, the Golden Arena for screenplay, the Golden Arena for leading female role, the Golden Arena for leading male role, the Golden Arena for cinematography, the Golden Arena for supporting female role, the Golden Arena for supporting male role, the Golden Arena for editing, the Golden Arena for music, the Golden Arena for set design, the Golden Arena for costume design, the Golden Arena for make-up, the Golden Arena for sound design, the Golden Arena for special effects in film, and the Golden Arena for visual effects in film.

More information about the festival, as well as photographs from the opening ceremony, is available on the Festival’s official pages.