Croatia’s ZagrebDox launches its 12th edition this Sunday, February 21 and runs through next Sunday, February 28. More than 160 new and retrospective features and shorts will screen as part of the event, the nation’s largest documentary showcase. While much of this includes local debuts of films that are already well-traveled on the international festival circuit, the festival also affords the opportunity to view new regional work, a sampling of which is provided below.
ZagrebDox’s Official Competition is split into two categories: International and Regional. The latter includes more than a dozen features, including: Arsen Oremović’s look at the co-opting of soccer by political and other forces, THIRD BEST; Tomislav Pulić and Robert Tomić Zuber’s inside look at a co-op building’s fraught internal election, CANDIDATE (pictured); Tonći Gaćina’s exploration of a vital, complex industry, TOURISM!; Igor Bogdanović’s profile of a love triangle contending with an impending birth, LILA; and Marko Grba Singh’s portrait of Somali refugees seeking shelter, ABDUL & HAMZA.
Eight thematic strands make up the fest’s non-competitive Official Programme. Among these are Factumentaries, which includes Pero Kvesić’s DUM SPIRO SPERO, a personal meditation on dying and living and Nenad Puhovski’s GENERATION ’68, a reflection on the unattainable dreams of the revolutionary generation; Teen Dox, with offerings like Dénes Nagy’s HARM, which explores those who self-injure, and Tamara Erde’s TEACHING IGNORANCE, a look at how Palestinian and Israeli teachers tell the story of the region’s conflict; State of Affairs, with Martina Globočnik’s TASTE OF HOME, a food-focused look at asylum seekers in Croatia, and Jakon Gottschau’s FACEBOOKISTAN, an examination of the ubiquitous social media platform and its controversies; Controversial Dox, which presents Deeyah Khan’s JIHAD: A STORY OF THE OTHERS, an exploration of how and why Westerners are drawn to extremism; and Happy Dox, which includes titles like Paul Mariano’s BEING GEORGE CLOONEY (pictured), about the foreign film voice dubbing industry, and Jill Coulon’s JOURNEY TO THE WEST, which follows Chinese tourists through six European countries.
Rounding out the program are the Special Programme section, which includes the sidebar The Russians Are Coming, featuring work like Alisa Kovalenko and Lubov Durakova’s ALISA IN WARLAND, a personal exploration of the Ukrainian revolution, and Beata Bubenec’s GOD’S WILL (pictured), which focuses on a controversial rightwing Russian Orthodox activist; as well as Retrospectives, which presents the work of Swedish-based Italian filmmaker Erik Gandini and Georgian filmmaker Nino Kirtadzé, among others.
what (not) to doc 