ZagrebDox Tuesday: Premiere of Bigger than Trauma by Vedrana Pribačić and Mirta Puhlovski

04.04.2022.

Twenty documentaries scheduled for today

After the free screenings which start the programme at 3 pm at ZagrebDox, the audience can expect a number of film titles, and guest authors will reveal out more about the origins of their achievements in Q&A’s after the screenings.

In the film Locks, Keys, Water, Trees, which will be shown at 4 pm in Theatre 1, the British artist and director Penny Andrea is facing her own illness with the help of art. Using only her own drawings and voice, the director embarks on a fascinating search for answers, acceptance and comfort. The master of cinematic storytelling, British director and artist Mark Cousins, in his new work The Story of Looking (5 pm, Theatre 2) in an essayistic way, with a handful of references to historical events, works of art and cinema, analyses the role and power of visual experiences in interpreting the world around us.

At the same time, Theatre 4 will screen the award-winning film by Granpda by Nikola Ilić and Corina Schwingruber Ilić, a touching portrait of a man trying to live in two countries and taking care of three women – his mother, grandmother and wife. In Theatre 5, the film Father, honoured with the Golden Dove of the DOK Leipzig Festival, is scheduled, in which director Wei Deng speaks about the radical consequences of modernisation in China through a personal perspective and the difficult relationship between his own father and grandfather.

Another title from the Biography Dox section will be shown at 6 pm – Mission: Joy - Finding Happiness in Troubled Times (Theatre 1), directed by the Oscar winner Louie Psihoyos and Peggy Callahan, which provides insight into the friendship of two charismatic spiritual leaders and fighters for justice, peace and freedom, the Tibetan leader Dalai Lama and South African archbishop and activist Desmond Tutu. At the same time in Theatre 3, the film 107 Mothers will be presented in person by the Slovakian director Peter Kerekes. Set in the gloomy ambience of the women’s penitentiary in Odessa, this documentary-fiction hybrid created according to authentic testimonies won the award for best screenplay at the Venetian Mostra.

In Theatre 5 at 7 pm, two films from the State of Affairs section are scheduled – the documentary I’m Trying to Remember through photos from the family album, videos from home archives and still living memories by Pegah Ahangarani deals with the consequences of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. With the guest appearance of the author Andrei Kutsila, a screening of the film When Flowers Are Not Silent follows, which talks about the brutal suppression of peaceful demonstrations after the last presidential election in Belarus.

The world premiere of the Croatian documentary Bigger than Trauma by Vedrana Pribačić and Mirta Puhlovski will be held in Theatre 3 at 8 pm. At the same time, in Theatre 1, there is a touching feature film debut by Simon Lereng Wilmont, House of Splinters, about the fate of children housed in an eastern Ukrainian orphanage. In a Q&A session after the film, the director will reveal more about the achievement that earned him the Sundance Award for directing.

At 9 pm, the programme includes films from international and regional competition: in Theatre 2, the Slovenian filmmaker Marija Zidar will present Reconciliation, a story about the fate of a family in the Albanian hills that finds itself at the crossroads of the past, uncertain present and pressures of a highly patriarchal Balkan society. In Theatre 4, the audience will see the Brotherhood by the Italian director Francesco Montagner about three young men in Bosnia who, behind the illusion of completely unexpected freedom from their father’s discipline, face a series of challenges and responsibilities. The film Imad’s Childhood, a shocking story about a five-year-old who returns to his native Yazidi community after almost three years in ISIL, will be presented by director Zahavi Sanjavi in ​​Theatre 5.

The line-up ends with screenings at 10 pm, when Antonia Kilian’s film The Other Side of the River, whose protagonist finds a new home among Kurdish women fighting Islamic State and patriarchy, will be screened in Theatre 1, while Sabaya by Hogir Hirori will be shown in Theatre 3, speaking about a group of brave men who risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women trapped in the infamous ISIS camp.