The Festival has an Artistic Director who is appointed and dismissed by the Minister of Culture.
The Minister of Culture, from the ranks of prominent film experts, appoints the Artistic Director. The mandate of the Artistic Director lasts two years.
The Artistic Director prepares and submits to the Festival Board the following:
- The Festival programme, which includes the Main programme and accompanying programmes (industrial and networking)
- Selectors for the accompanying programmes
- International guests
- Film titles for the main and accompanying programmes
- Schedule of film screenings
- The composition of the Festival Jury.
The Festival Council approves the above proposals by a majority vote.
The Artistic Director is responsible for the execution of the programme.
ZLATKO VIDAČKOVIĆ (Šibenik, Croatia,1972) is a film critic, university lecturer, as well as editor and organizer of film programmes and events. He has a Master of Journalism degree and is a PhD student in the information and communication sciences doctoral programme at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb.
He has been involved in journalism since 1998. He contributed regularly to Jutarnji list daily and Globus weekly up until 2000, when he became an assistant to the editor-in-chief of the cultural newspaper Vijenac. Following his departure from Vijenac in 2008, he founded Kulisa.eu, an online newspaper dedicated to culture and performing arts, serving as its editor-in-chief. He also founded online film magazines based on the sections from Kulisa.eu: Kazaliste.hr, Klasika.hr,Plesnascena.hr and Filmovi.hr (serving as its editor since foundation).
Since 2003 he has contributed film reviews to Vjesnik daily, for which he worked as a film columnist and correspondent from biggest international film festivals till 2012.
From 2010 till 2016 he was editor-in-chief of theatre magazine Hrvatsko glumiste.
He was the president of the Croatian Film Critics’ Association (HDFK) for five terms, from 2003 to 2008. He served as FIPRESCI juror at film festivals in Cannes, San Francisco, Venice and Berlin.
He is the vice-president of FEDEORA – Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean and IPA – international Press Academy.
Since November 2004 till February 2014 he has been the artistic director of Pula Film Festival. During his term, the Pula Film Festival has become the most visited cultural event in Croatia, the International Programme Europolis has expanded to Zagreb, Rijeka, Dubrovnik, and Split, and the Festival has been visited by Greta Scacchi, Christopher Lee, James Ivory, and Ralph Fiennes, and the Festival received a grant from the MEDIA programme.
In September 2010 he founded art-cinema Metropolis at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb and he has served as its programme director ever since. He is the network leader of five Croatian theatres which have been accepted as members of Europa Cinemas under his leadership.
Since 2011 he has been deputy head of the Theatre and Film Department of Matica Hrvatska (Central Croatian Cultural and Publishing Society) where he initiated scientific conferences on cinema.
He has been the initiator and producer of the European Film Days, held during the European week in May 2102 and 2013, and in 2014 the producer of the European film week which takes place in July at the Open Air Cinema Tuskanac and in art-cinemas Gric and Metropolis.
In 2013, he was head of the Film section of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, which lasted a record 45 days and included a cycle of film adaptation of the works of Oscar Wilde.
