At the Summer greeting, on Saturday, the 6th of July, the selection for Four River Film Festival, Youth Film Festival and Croatian Children’s Film Festival has been announced, accompanied by the screenings of the films from this year’s educational programmes.
The start of the summer was this year once again celebrated with a special film programme which showed the work of young filmmakers from the educational programmes of the Croatian Film Association. The most important part of the event for young filmmakers from Croatia and the whole world was the announcement of the films that entered the competition of the 24th Youth Film Festival, 12th Four River Film Festival and 57th Croatian Children’s Film Festival.
We can proudly point out that Four River Film Festival keeps growing and is shaping into a global festival because we have received submissions from 94 countries from all over the world; from Singapore, China, the United States of America to Bolivia, Nigeria, the Togolese Republic and most European countries. The selection committee had a difficult job of choosing 23 films which will be shown at the festival from the 1363 that were submitted. The category of fiction films includes 12, documentary films 6 films. The selection also includes 5 animated and 4 freestyle films. The list of films is available here.
221 films from authors aged from 14 to 20 have been submitted to the 24th Youth Film Festival. 41 films were chosen, among them 13 freestyle films, 11 documentaries and fiction films and 6 animated films. The most common authors are from Photo Cinema Video Club Zaprešić, Blank film incubator and Private High Art School from Zagreb. The full list of films is available here.
The process of selection for the Youth Film Festival and Four River Film Festival was made by Ana Đordić, a professor of Croatian language and media culture, film critic Boško Picula and cinematographer and director Dinka Radonić, who after the selection process told us: “We are very impressed by the record amount of films submitted, and the selection process was a long one because it was very hard to choose from all the genius works only those that would enter the selection, especially because they were all close calls and because we know how young the authors are. We invite everybody to come to Karlovac and see all the amazing movies from young authors from all over the world!”
The number of submissions for these two festivals, which keeps growing from year to year, is witness to the great interest from young filmmakers for these film events, in our region as much as on the international level, and to the perception of the festivals as an important platform for working, encouraging and motivating further filmmaking of the youth. The 24th Youth Film Festival and 12th Four River Film Festival will be held from 10th to 14th of September in Karlovac, organised by the Croatian Film Association and KinoKlub Karlovac.
221 movies have been submitted to the 57th Croatian Children’s Film Festival, all authors primary schoolers. 89 films have been selected in 6 categories: 29 animated, 12 documentaries and 25 fiction films. The other categories include 8 workshop and 7 freestyle films, as well as 8 TV reports. The most movies are by Photo Cinema Video Club Zaprešić, the Creative Film Studio VANIMA and Dubrava National University. The list of movies is available on this link.
The movies were chosen by film editor Marina Andree Škop, director Čejen Černić Čanak and Astrid Nox, a media theorist and practitioner and a professor at the The Faculty of Teacher Education in Zagreb. They were especially delighted by the freshness and seriousness of these very young authors and the way they approach certain subjects. The 57th Croatian Children’s Film Festival will be held from 3rd to 6th of October in Sisak, organised by the Croatian Film Association and KinoKlub Sisak.
The other part of our Saturday programme were the premieres of the films that were made at the educational workshops in cinema Tuškanac. The animated film workshop was led by Maida Srabović, Vedran Štefan and Vanda Kreutz. The fiction film workshop was led by Tomislav Šoban, and the documentary workshop by Marinko Marinkić. The educational programme in cinema Tuškanac is a one-of-its-kind film programme in the Republic of Croatia which young people always eagerly come back to. The workshops are meant for primary schoolers, and the film classes are the only film educational programme meant for high school students and are, by the way, completely free of charge.