“I have two favorite festivals”, said the leading European filmmaker Agnieszka Holland earlier this year, while whole Europe was still in lockdown. “They are similar in that they are short, intense and you can meet fellow filmmakers because you’re not doing any kind of promotion. One is Telluride, the other is Motovun in Croatia.”
We were thrilled to read in her interview for Screen Daily that Motovun Film Festival has a special place in the heart of the European Film Academy’s president who was our guest of honor on Film Hill in 2017.
Once again, Motovun Film Festival will put up its big screens on the hill at its regular time – the last week of July. After the unfavorable pandemic-related developments changed the festival concept last summer (with only one screening taking place in Motovun and the remaining ones in 27 Croatian towns and cities), this year it’s business as usual again: five days and nights in the streets and squares of the medieval town commanding a great vista of the Mirna Valley.
In its 23rd edition, Motovun Film festival offers a variety of the best films of the season, coming from all over the world. They were selected by our programmers Milena Zajović and Jurica Pavičić. The program will be announced on 1 July, when advance ticket sale will also begin.
For the eight time, the festival will have its preview screenings in neighboring town of Buzet, with four films from the festival program and our children and youth film festival known as Buzz@teen (22-25 July). Simultaneously with the Motovun screenings, selected films from the festival program will be shown in Zagreb (Tuškanac Open-Air Theater), Split (Bačvice Open-Air Theater) and Dubrovnik (Jadran Theater).
After Motovun, the festival goes on tour in order to show some films from its program in as many Istrian and Croatian places as possible. Traditionally, the tour ends in Zagreb’s Lauba Center with the ten-day film marathon presenting the best from this year’s festival edition (26 August – 5 September).
