The screening of the film Trust by Matija Benić and the Award Ceremony marked the closing of the 26th Youth Film Festival and the 14th Four River Film Festival, co-organized by the Croatian Film Association and Cinema Club Karlovac

The last screening of Karlovac’s week of film was held last night in the Living Room on Mrežnica. The film “Trust” by Matija Benić was shown. Matija Benić has been making films since he was a child and has won several awards at youth festivals, including the award for Best Directing at the Four River Film Festival in Karlovac in 2019. “Trust” had its premiere at the recently finished Pula Film Festival.

During the five festival evenings, the citizens of Karlovac and Karlovac County had the opportunity to watch four Croatian feature films with guest appearances by the directors and film crews of “Murina“, directed by Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, “Love Around the World” by Anđela and Davor Rostuhar, “Lihvar” directed by Nemanja Ćeranić and “Trust” directed by Matija Benić.

In addition to the film screenings, the audience had the opportunity to enjoy and learn through a rich schedule of educational programs, discussions and presentations, and on Wednesday in cooperation with the City Library “Ivan Goran Kovačić”, we hosted Davor Rostuhar who presented his book “Love Around the World” and the visitors were also able to explore the accompanying photo exhibition.

The Karlovac audience watched the Award Ceremony live in the Urban Park of the Croatian Home, and everyone who wishes can watch the video at the following link: https://frff.com.hr/screening-schedule/

The Grand Prix was awarded to the Spanish film Water My Plants, directed by Jordi Sanz, with the jury describing it as a serious approach to an intimate topic that is told with precise, authentic and insightful filmic means of expression. The Audience Award went to the film The Writer, directed by students of the School of Graphics, Design and Media Production from Zagreb. The Yellow Flag, which is awarded to a film that most successfully and convincingly condemns violence with its topics and stories, was received by the film Initiate Solidarity by the Osijek Medical School.

Although we couldn’t hold the entire program in person due to the pandemic, each year we are pleased with the interest of our audience. While the audience in Karlovac eagerly followed the competition program and the evening screenings every day, we also recorded a great response from the audience online – this year over 10,000 users watched the films from the competition program.

You can find the list of all the other awards here: https://frff.com.hr/awards/.

In order to prolong the festival mood at least a little bit, we decided on additional online screenings of the award-winning films, which can be watched until the end of this weekend at the following link: https://frff.com.hr/screening-schedule/

The Awards of the Youth Film Festival and Four River Film Festival were given out by a professional jury consisting of Matea Milić, the producer of the World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb, film editor Hrvoje Mršić and film director Nemanja Ćeranić. The Awards were also given out by the Youth Jury made of high school students.

We continue to grow as a global festival with a multitude of interesting and quality submissions. The films arrived at the four rivers from all continents and from over 50 countries around the world.

The number of submissions (1,415 films in total), which grows from year to year despite the unfavorable events and crises in the world, testifies to the great interest of young filmmakers for these film events, both in our region and internationally. Understanding them as important platforms for the work, encouragement and further motivation of young filmmakers is becoming more important than ever.

As this year’s events came to a close, the organizers have already started preparing for the upcoming edition, when young people from all over the world will hopefully come to Karlovac to make it yellow once more by attending the 27th Youth Film Festival and the 15th Four River Film Festival from September 6th to 10th, 2022.