WORK IN PROGRESS

MOM’S ALIVE TODAY, Josip Lukić

A film based on the director’s personal trauma in which he plays himself, while casting the best Croatian actors as his family members, medical staff and the citizens of Split, his hometown. The story follows Jakov, who abruptly returns to his hometown to take care of his mother, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder. Their bond is strong, deep, tender, but above all pathological. Jakov’s unbreakable attachment to his mother prevents him from maturing and gaining control over his own life, putting him on the verge of breaking down as well.

Josip Lukić is a director, screenwriter and actor who has made 11 shorts and documentaries. His films have received all the most important awards in the Balkans – Heart of Sarajevo for the Best Student Film, Best Balkan Newcomer in Prizren, Best Short Film at Beldocs, Best Croatian Film at Zagreb FF, Grand Prix and Best Directing at Days of Croatian Film and Special Jury Award at Doc Lisboa.

EPILOGUE, Igor Jelinović

A former couple spends a Sunday together in an empty Zagreb in the middle of summer.

Igor Jelinović (1984) is a screenwriter, director and head of the Blank Association from Zagreb.

SPACEHEAD, Marina Andree Škop, Vanda Raýmanová

Spacehead is an adventure film for children, which, despite its sensitive subject matter, is imbued with numerous comedic elements and told in a wacky, highly stylized film language. When her parents mysteriously disappear one hot summer day, Alisa seeks help from a group of neighbourhood boy detectives. The situation is further complicated by Alisa’s autistic brother Milan, who cannot be left home alone, so he joins them in the search. The children soon find a way to communicate with Milan and together they experience an adventure that brings them closer together and changes their lives forever.

Co-directors Marina Andree Škop (Croatia) and Vanda Raymanova (Slovakia) are experienced authors of audiovisual content for children, each with different professional experience – Marina in feature films, as a director, producer and editor, and Vanda in various animation projects. What unites them is a passion for visual stylization, and creation of original film stories that encourage empathy in children.

THE CRYSTAL PLANET, Arsen Anton Ostojić

The Crystal Planet is a feature science fiction 3D animated film for children in a Croatian-Czech-Slovak co-production. It is about Rea, an 11-year-old girl who moves with her father to the newly discovered Crystal Planet, where her father got a job at a factory for the production of robotic animals owned by Mordokan, the governor of the planet. By accident, Rea finds a stray cub of unknown animals that live underground and realizes that she does not have much time left to save the cute cub from the greedy Mordokan.

The author of the screenplay blueprint is the Oscar-winning director Dušan Vukotić; the screenwriters are Aleksandar Žiljak, Arsen Anton Ostojić and Brett Shumway. The film was directed by the award-winning director Arsen Anton Ostojić, and produced by production companies Filmosaurus Rex from Zagreb, Alkay Animation Prague from the Czech Republic and BFilm from Bratislava. The head of design is Stjepan Mihaljević, the editor is Lucie Haladova, and film score composers are Mate Matišić and Dalibor Grubačević.

NEW LIFE, Goran Dević

The model residential building for workers at the Sisak Ironworks, built for the anniversary of the introduction of self-government, is experiencing a radical change in the structure of its residents seventy years later. The state, as part of a European programme, moves refugees from the Middle East into the apartments of the former working class. Most of the immigrants share the fate of the children of their new neighbours and soon leave for Germany. The dynamics of arrivals and even faster departures to “Novi Život” is interrupted by a catastrophic earthquake. A new working class arrives in the building – Nepalese workers, this time on the job of demolishing a building that was slated for demolition.

Goran Dević (Sisak, 1971) is a director and screenwriter of documentary and feature films. He graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art, where he currently teaches. His feature documentary Pavillion 6 is the first Croatian film ever to be purchased by the BBC in 2024. He directed The Blacks (2009) and other awarded documentaries such as On the Water, The Steel Mill Café and Happy Land. His films have been screened at numerous festivals.

YUGO GOES TO AMERICA, Filip Grujić

In this road trip documentary, over the course of one summer, three people born in Serbia in the 1990s set off on a road trip to America – driving a Yugo from New York to Los Angeles. The film follows their journey through 23 states and over 10,000 kilometres, to tell the story of the export of a small socialist car to the competitive Reagan America of 1980s. Thirty-three years after the last Yugo was imported to America, the filmmakers set off on the adventure of a lifetime, fulfilling the Yugo’s bucket list.

Filip Grujić is a writer and playwright, assistant at the Department of Theatre Dramaturgy and the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He is the author of the following novels: Tenant (2020) – nominated for the European Prize for Literature; shortlisted for the NIN award: The Lustful Days of Cocky Johnny (2017), And Then, All Over Again (2023) – shortlisted for the NIN award. Aleksa Borković is a director of photography and a director working in feature and documentary films. He studied Digital Arts at the Faculty of Media and Communications. He directed the short feature film Wait for Me Here, which had its world premiere at the 28^th Sarajevo Film Festival.