ZagrebDox Wednesday

The anniversary ZagrebDox has decided to strongly embrace the opportunity offered by the atypical timing of the parliamentary elections in Croatia to documentary fans this Wednesday and provide a series of free screenings of the best new films and one timeless classic from 1 pm.

In International Competition in theatre 4 at 1 pm you can see Under Construction, the feature film debut of the Finnish director Markus Toivo, who went to the never-completed home of his childhood in an attempt to build a relationship with his father who abandoned him many years ago. At the same time, Mermaid and This Woman, portraits of two women thousands of kilometres apart between Norway and China, who also have some common character traits, are being rerun in theatre 5.

At 1:30 pm in theatre 1, a new, last and free opportunity to see Intercepted of Russian Soldiers from the Ukrainian frontline, while in theatre 3 the Green Dox segment focused on environmental issues continues with Nuclear Nomads (dir. Kilian Armando Friedrich, Tizian Stromp Zargari) about people who in France work on the maintenance of nuclear power plants for high wages and slightly lower amounts of radiation.

At 2 pm in theatre 2, the My Fave Dox section will feature a film selected by Nenad Puhovski. Of course, we are talking about Werner Herzog’s The White Diamond, a modern classic about the collision of human dreams and the power of nature, with which ZagrebDox started two decades ago. Considering that there is no admission fee for this screening either, there is no valid reason to miss Herzog’s Guyanese story about one of his tragic enthusiasts. With its phenomenal film photography, accompanied by the great score by Ernst Reijseger and Eric Spitzer, White Diamond in many aspects determined the direction in which ZagrebDox moved and developed.

The highlights of creative documentaries do not end there, however, because Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog is scheduled for 3 pm (theatre 5), also in the My Fave Dox section. The respected multidisciplinary artist reflects on the loss of her mother, husband and beloved terrier in this personal, emotional, comical and ethereal film-essay made using home footage, animation and photographs. In theatre 4, at the same time, for the second and last time, the cute work Fighting Demons with Dragons, a Teen Doc about cosplay and RPG as school strategies for dealing with adolescent problems is screened.

At 15:30 (theatre 1) international competition continues with the Scandinavian block consisting of Girl Away from Home (dir. Simon Lereng Wilmont, Alisa Kovalenko) and A New Kind of Wilderness (dir. Silje Evensmo Jacobsen). A Girl Away from Home tells the story of the thirteen-year-old captain of the elite Kiev gymnastics team who, due to the Russian invasion, has to find a new life in Germany, while A New Kind of Wildness, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, follows the life of a six-member family whose idyll with nature is interrupted by a tragedy.

In Regional Competition (3:30 pm, theatre 3), a special treat is presented by the last film of the great experimentalist, multimedia artist Ivan Faktor (1953–2023) Triangle Straight Line Point, which, based on a 30-year-old recording of performances by Vladimir Dodig Trokut, Tomislav Gotovac and Faktor himself, depicts their reaction to war and political events, summarizing the eruption of their unrestrained statements, speeches, acts and impressions. In the same block, Grand Prize by Anja Koprivšek, about a young trans man who finds support and inspiration in a veteran of the ballroom scene, with whom he first develops a mentoring and friendly relationship, and then an intimate relationship, is shown in the same block, along with an interview with the filmmaker.

Teen Dox’s medium-length mosaic then from 4 pm (theatre 2) presents films in sequence: Sister of Mine (dir. Mariusz Rusiński), the best youth film of IDFA 2023 about the struggle with addiction, This Is Raquel’s Not-so-secret Diary (dir. Raquel Agea Ramos), an uncensored insight into a girl’s mind burdened by the opposite sex, and Line Rider (dir. Simon Intihar), an intriguing portrait of a reluctant cultural icon – a young man who is pushed into the abyss of fame, alcohol and unacceptable behaviour by a viral video game. Simon Intihar will answer questions from the audience after the screening.

At 5:00 pm (theatre 4) International Competition presents a film by a Moldovan author with a Belgian address, Olga Lucovnicova, Object 817 connected with an alien from Kyshtym, strange events that took place in the deep Urals several decades ago, but above all with the community that these events marked. In the same slot follows Tribeca’s magnificent award-winner Between the Rains (dir. Andrew H. Brown, Moses Thuranira) – a beautifully filmed exploration of childhood within traditional Kenyan Turkana culture threatened by climate change and violence. In theatre 5, Magic Mountain (directed by Mariam Chachia, Nik Voigt), also decorated with a host of festival awards, is screened in parallel. It is a film with a unique, anxious atmosphere, set in the Georgian health resort Abastumani, where the author’s fears intersect with those of the community that lives there, as well as the entire nation.

At 17:30 (theatre 1) the Oscar-nominated Four Daughters is presented a brave artistic-therapeutic, psychodramatic procedure by director Kaouther Ben Hania, who, with the help of actors and film procedures, removes the veil from the life stories of mother and daughter, both alive and tragically deceased. The film, which also competed in the official Cannes selection, captivates primarily with sincere emotions that overcome generational differences, a spirit of sisterhood and a functional camera with an exceptional sense of colour. At the same time, but in theatre 3, David Boaretto’s Happy Dox April in France offers a break from difficult topics, about a five-year-old English girl whose unwanted move to France enables her to connect with her late great-grandfather’s friends and learn something about herself with their help. The director will talk to the audience after the screening.

At 18:00 in theatre 2 in Regional Competition, the new film by photographer and director Vladimira Spindler, The Genes of My Children, will premiere. The author, who drew attention to herself with her autobiographical works, from whose disarming openness more universal, psychological and social conclusions can easily be drawn, this time talks about the characters and interests of four generations of women in her family, again drawing the bow towards the general theme of emancipation.

After the screening of Pero Kvesić’s latest film, The House in Kraljevec (7 pm, theatre 4), his producer Nenad Puhovski, who, due to the author’s illness and death, together with the co-screenwriter and editor Vesna Biljan Pušić completed it, will talk about this work, which focuses on the author’s home with a rich history of tenants and visitors. Also at 7:00 pm, in theatre 5, the screening of two works from the Green Dox section will be repeated – And a Happy New Year and As the Tide Comes In.

At 7:30 pm in theatre 1, the Master of Dox segment hosts another contemporary classic – Marc Isaacs with the film This Blessed Plot about a Chinese director who in a small English village gets to know the medieval synchronicity of the living and the dead, the past and the present, light and darkness. The film was made with hybrid and experimental techniques, archival material and other procedures on the border between reality and fiction, but it is not without humour or love. Isaacs will answer questions from the audience after the screening.

At 19:30 in theatre 3, another DoXXL panel, which in collaboration with Elle Croatia follows the screening of High&Low - John Galliano by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald, will, logically, be devoted to fashion. Ivan Ilić, Alemka Lisinski and Donovan Pavleković take part in the discussion “The other side of fashion”, again under the commanding baton of Dina Pokrajac. Some of the topics will be Galliano’s career before and after the infamous racist outburst, the reverse side of the fashion industry, cancel and whitewashing practices, etc.

The Masters of Dox section continues at 8 pm (theatre 2) with another great – Nikolaus Geyrhalter, whose The Standstill takes us to pandemic Vienna among abandoned locations and at first responsible, then frustrated citizens.

At 9 pm in the controversial doc Danger Zone (theatre 4) Vita Maria Drygas and Kamil Niewiński present us with the incredible and disgusting world of war tourism, and Igor Mirković guides us in Beautiful Lovely People (theatre 5) behind the lens of Šime Strikoman.

From 9:30 pm, that is, from 10 pm, ZagrebDox’s lavish Wednesday, in which there is no wrong choice, is brought to an end by the war themes of Boy and Photophobia (theatre 1, International Competition), i.e. Silence of Reason (theatre 3, Regional Competition).