Croatian Premieres: ‘Past Lives’ by Celine Song and ‘Excursion’ by Una Gunjak in CineStar Branimir, ‘All of Us Strangers’ by Andrew Haigh and ‘Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World aka A Case History’ by Radu Jude in Kinoteka Cinema

ZFF Thursday in CineStar Branimir starts at 6.30 PM with Past Lives, a romantic debut by Canadian-Korean director Celine Song. The film has been wowing audiences and critics since its premiere at Sundance. In Branimir at 9 PM, it is time for the Croatian premiere of a long-awaited debut feature by Bosnian director Una Gunjak, Excursion, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival where it received Special Mention. The film follows Iman (Asja Zara Lagumdžija), a teenager from Sarajevo whose seemingly innocuous lie lands her in the middle of a school scandal. This Bosnian Academy Award candidate deals with the topic of growing up in a society torn between tradition and modernity. After the screening, the film will be presented to the Zagreb audience by director Una Gunjak, actress Maja Izetbegović, and producer Amra Bakšić Čamo.

The most popular ZFF’s program, The Great 5, continues at 5 PM at Kinoteka Cinema with another premiere – the film All of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh. This surreal drama about a screenwriter who visits his hometown to find his parents who died in a traffic accident has already been proclaimed as one of the best films of this year. In this subtle film lamentation on the topic of loneliness and love, outstanding roles were played by British actors Andrew Scott (Fleabag), Paul Mescal (Normal People, Aftersun, The Lost Daughter), Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot), and Claire Foy (The Crown).

In Kinoteka Cinema at 7 PM we have the latest film by Radu Jude, one of the leading European directors and two-time ZFF winner (The Happiest Girl in the World, Everybody in Our Family), a provocative and dizzying satire about business culture and whitewashing of the corporate image, packed with absurdities that could only happen in real life. Honoured with two awards at this year’s Locarno, the film follows an overworked and underpaid Angela who drives around Bucharest filming potential protagonists for a workplace safety film commissioned by a multinational. The film is shown as part of the Together Again program.

The children’s KinoKino program at MSU begins at 4 PM with the German mystery-drama My Life as Lotta, continues at 6 PM with the film from the competition program of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region, Luxembourg, Luxembourg by Antonio Lukich, a gangster story about two Ukrainians with an unexpected comedical twist, shown at the Horizonti program of Venice Film Festival and at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The new film by popular German director Christian Petzold and this year’s Berlinale winner, Afire can be seen at the MSU’s big screen within the The Great 5 program, beginning at 8.30 PM. In the second part of the trilogy, starting with Undine (ZFF 2020), we follow four young people trapped in a Baltic idyll when fires start breaking out. At first, a potentially catastrophic situation makes them grow closer, up until the moment when their relationships are overwhelmed by envy, lust, and sex.

This evening’s program at Kinoteka Cinema starts at 10 PM with a selection of films from the international short film program – Container Scanning, None of That, and Tits, as well as Croatian short films from the Checkers program – The Pack by Marko Jukić and Skummy by Saša Poštić.