The second day of ZFF continues with Venice and Berlin winners, Austria’s Academy Award candidate, new films from the main competition program of KinoKino children’s festival, the The Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region, as well as the start of the popular Checkers program.

Tuesday in Tuškanac Cinema starts at 17 h with Macaluso Sisters by director Emma Dante, an Italian film from the side program The Great 5. The film is a chronicle of transience and memories which revolves around the relationship of five sisters in the suburb of Palermo. This touching family drama is an adaptation of the director’s award-winning theatre drama, and the film was screened in Venice, Toronto, and Warsaw.

The KinoKino children’s festival’s program continues at 18 h in Urania with the screening of the Belgian film SpaceBoy centered around 11-year-old Jim, who is obsessed with space and science. When he moves to another city due to his father’s job, he quickly finds an ally in Emma, with whom he embarks on a glorious adventure – the construction of a giant air balloon!

The feature film competition continues in SC Cinema at 18.30 h with the winner of the Golden Lion and FIPRESCI Award in Venice, the French film Happening directed by Audrey Diwan. This is a powerful and tense adaptation of a semiautobiographical novel by French novelist Annie Ernaux which dissects her experience of illegal abortion in 1960’s France. The film follows the young student Anne which decides to have an abortion in order to finish her studies and escape the social constraints of a working-class family. But the year is 1963 and abortion is illegal in France, and time is running out. Another film from the feature competition screens at 21 h, the prison drama Great Freedom, winner of this year’s Jury Award in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section and Austria’s Academy Award candidate. Sebastian Meise masterfully intertwines the personal, sensual, and political through the portrait of an unusual relationship between two men who meet in a prison.

Tuesday is the day for the new film by famous Romanian director Radu Jude in the Together Again program, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, an absurd comedy which won the Golden Bear in Berlin. Through the story of a moral judgment visited upon the shy high-school professor Emi (Katia Pascariu), whose homemade porn was leaked on the internet, we get a broader picture of contemporary Romania and its deep-rooted hypocrisy, prejudices, sexism, and racism. The film screens at 19.30 h in Tuškanac Cinema.

At 22 h in Tuškanac Cinema, the short film competition continues with the French film 4 AM and the Kosovar Displaced. They are followed by two films from this year’s Checkers competition, the program for short films with focus on new Croatian authors. We will watch the new film by Borna Zidarić, Alone, and Horticulture by Silva Ćapin.

The special competition program Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region features the film German Lessons by Pavel G. Vesnakov, one of the most successful young Bulgarian directors, known for his provocative realistic films which deal with social decay and interpersonal relationships. In his film debut, Vesnakov tells a story about a 50-year-old driver Nikola who is only a day away from finishing his probation, after which he intends to start a new life in Germany. The film screens at 20.30 h at &TD Theatre.

Television series will be the focus of the program Series Rough Pitch – The Balkan Way which is jointly organized by Creative Europe Desk – MEDIA Office from Croatia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, and Slovenia. This pitching event is aimed at projects of TV series in development, since the Subprogram MEDIA 2021 — 2027 emphasizes the development of this form. The projects selected to participate via public call will be presented to the international jury of experts and moderated by head of the Creative Europe Desk — MEDIA Office Croatia Martina Petrović. An online workshop will also be held as part of this program, led by acclaimed film experts, award-winning producer Helena Granqvist and acclaimed screenwriter and advisor Valerija Richter, which is open to the public via stream, starting at noon.