ZagrebDox
ZagrebDox is an international documentary film festival taking place in Zagreb every year, in late February / early March. Launched in 2005, the festival is intended to provide audiences and experts insight into recent documentary films, stimulate national documentary production and boost international and regional cooperation in co-productions. ZagrebDox is a specialised festival that presents the best creative documentary films whose imaginative form and choice of topics make it unique in Croatia and Europe.
 ZagrebDox 2008 masthead | |
| Location | Zagreb, Croatia |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2005 |
| Awards | Veliki pečat Mali pečat |
| No. of films | 104 (2019)[1] |
| Language | International |
| Website | www |
The festival's competition program has international and regional categories. The international competition presents the best auteur and creative documentary films from the world made and produced in the past year, with a focus on everything that is new, brave, off mainstream and intrepid. The regional competition program consists of the films from Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia and Serbia. The fact that ZagrebDox lays great stress on the regional program makes it additionally attractive for all those who want to look into the latest regional production.
Besides the competition program, ZagrebDox has a number of non-competition programs – retrospectives and films focused on specific subjects, genres, techniques and aesthetics.
Essential part of the festival is ZagrebDox Pro, a training programme consisting of a preparatory workshop for creative documentary projects in different stages of development and production, a Pitching Forum and individual meetings. The four-day workshop is tailored for professional director/producer teams. In some cases, teams can also be joined by the screenwriter, cinematographer or editor, but a director and/or a producer must be present.
The festival is organised by a Zagreb-based film production company Factum, and is usually held in February. As of 2019, the festival has featured more than 2,000 films, which were seen by approximately 290,000 visitors.[1]
Awards
Prizes are awarded in the following categories:
Official Awards
Big Stamp Award (Veliki pečat) : for Best Film in International Competition Programme
Big Stamp Award (Veliki pečat) : for Best Film in Regional Competition Programme
Little Stamp Award (Mali pečat): for Best Film by a young author of up to 35 years of age
HT Audience Award: for Best Film Audience Choice
Special Awards
Movies that Matter Award: for film that best promotes human rights
Teen Dox Award: for best film about issues concerning the young. The award is given by a special jury consisting of male and female students from a single high school
FIPRESCI Award: or best film in Regional Competition
The award of the International Federation of Film Critics – FIPRESCI Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique, the oldest and most prestigious film critics association, with members from around fifty countries. The award is of great importance among film authors.
My Generation Award: The award for a film by My Generation filmmaker is an award dedicated to those filmmakers who have, often in a quiet and unassuming manner, achieved great quality of work and whose presence has been crucial to documentary film for years, even decades. The filmmakers without whom there would be no documentary film. Awarded by Nenad Puhovski, the founder and Director of ZagrebDox.
The awards (except the special ones) include a statue and a diploma. The Festival Jury can also award Special Mentions consisting of a diploma.
Award winners
International competition
| Year | English title | Original title | Director(s) | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | The 3 Rooms of Melancholia | Melancholian 3 huonetta | Pirjo Honkasalo | Finland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden |
| 2006 | Before Flying Back to Earth | Prieš parskrendant į žemę | Arūnas Matelis | Lithuania, Germany |
| 2007 | Civil Status | Grajdanskoe sostoianie | Alina Rudnitskaya | Russia |
| 2008 | War/Dance | N/A | Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine | United States |
| 2009 | Lady Kul El Arab | ליידי כל אל ערב | Ebtisam Mara’ana | Israel |
| 2010 | Petition | Shangfang | Zhao Liang | China, Switzerland, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Finland |
| 2011 | Position Among the Stars | Stand van de Sterren | Leonard Retel Helmrich | Netherlands, Indonesia |
| 2012 | Returns | Powroty | Krzysztof Kadlubowski | Poland |
| 2013 | Kudzu Vine | N/A | Josh Gibson | United States |
| 2014 | The Last Station | La Última Estación | Cristian Soto and Catalina Vergara | Chile |
| 2015 | Virunga | N/A | Orlando von Einsiedel | United Kingdom, Congo |
| 2016 | Poet on a Business Trip | Shi ren chu chai le | Anqi Ju | China |
| 2017 | The Dazzling Light of Sunset | N/A | Salomé Jashi | Georgia, Germany |
| 2018 | Of Fathers and Sons | N/A | Talal Derki | Germany, Syria, Lebanon |
| 2019 | Up the Mountain | Huo Shan | Yang Zhang | China |
Regional competition
| Year | English title | Original title | Director(s) | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Images from the Corner | Slike sa ugla | Jasmila Žbanić | Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany |
| 2006 | Totally Personal | Sasvim lično | Nedžad Begović | Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| 2007 | Europe Next Door | Evropa preko plota | Želimir Žilnik | Serbia and Montenegro |
| 2008 | Weddings and Diapers | Darsmat dhe pampersat | Casey Cooper Johnson and Antoneta Kastrati | Kosovo |
| 2009 | The Caviar Connection | Kavijar konekšn | Dragan Nikolić | Serbia |
| 2010 | Totò | N/A | Peter Schreiner | Austria |
| 2011 | Trials, Tribulations & Sustainable Growth of a Cock | Život, priključenija i održivi razvoj jednog kokota | Vladimir Perović | Montenegro |
| 2012 | A Day on the Drina | Jedan dan na Drini | Ines Tanović | Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| 2013 | Tzvetanka | N/A | Youlian Tabakov | Bulgaria, Sweden |
| 2014 | Sacro GRA | N/A | Gianfranco Rosi | Italy, France |
| 2015 | Cain's Children | Káin gyermekei | Marcell Gerö | Hungary, France |
| 2016 | 4.7 | N/A | Đuro Gavran | Croatia |
| 2017 | Depth Two | Dubina dva | Ognjen Glavonić | Serbia |
| 2018 | The Other Side of Everything | Druga strana svega | Mila Turajlić | Serbia, France, Qatar |
| 2019 | Una primavera | Una primavera | Valentina Primavera | Germany, Austria, Italy |
Best Young Director
| Year | English title | Original title | Director(s) | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Life in Peace | Mirnaya zhizn | Antoine Cattin and Pavel Kostomarov | Switzerland, Russia |
| 2006 | The Angelmakers | N/A | Astrid Bussink | Hungary, Netherlands, United Kingdom |
| 2007 | Grandmothers of Revolution | Babice revolucije | Petra Seliškar | Macedonia, Netherlands, Cuba, Slovenia |
| 2008 | Audience of One | N/A | Michael Jacobs | United States |
| 2009 | On the Way to School | İki Dil Bir Bavul | Ozgür Dogan and Orhan Eskikoy | Turkey |
| 2010 | Chasm | Otchłań | Wojciech Kasperski | Poland |
| 2011 | Charcoal Burners | Smolarze | Piotr Zlotorowicz | Poland |
| 2012 | The Will | Testamentet | Christian Sønderby Jepsen | Denmark |
| 2013 | Turn Off the Lights | Lumea in patratele | Ivana Mladenović | Romania |
| 2014 | The Special Need | N/A | Carlo Zoratti | Germany, Italy, France, Austria |
| 2015 | Another Hungary – The Life of a Village – Fragments | Másik Magyarország - Töredékek egy falu hétköznapjaiból | Dénes Nagy | Hungary |
| 2016 | Above and Below | N/A | Nicolas Steiner | Switzerland, Germany, United States |
| 2017 | Depth Two | Dubina dva | Ognjen Glavonić | Serbia |
| 2018 | Over the Limit | N/A | Marta Prus | Poland, Germany, Finland |
| 2019 | Still Recording | Lissa ammetsajjel | Saeed Al Batal, Ghiath Ayoub | France, Germany, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria |
Audience Award
| Year | English title | Original title | Director(s) | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Direkt (40) Without Dad | Direkt (40) Bez tate | Nebojša Slijepčević | Croatia |
| Children of the Decree | Das Experiment 770 - Gebären auf Befehl | Razvan Georgescu and Florin Iepan | Romania, Germany | |
| 2006 | Wasn't awarded | |||
| 2007 | Blue Blood | N/A | Stevan Riley | United Kingdom |
| 2008 | All White in Barking | N/A | Marc Isaacs | United Kingdom |
| 2009 | The English Surgeon | N/A | Geoffrey Smith | United Kingdom |
| 2010 | People from the Milky Way | Ljudi s mliječnog puta | Miroslav Mikuljan | Croatia |
| The Destiny of Line 13 | Sudbina broja 13 | Irena Škorić | ||
| 2011 | Waste Land | N/A | Lucy Walker | Brazil, United Kingdom |
| 2012 | Family Meals | Nije ti život pjesma Havaja | Dana Budisavljević | Croatia |
| 2013 | Gangster of Love | Gangster te voli | Nebojša Slijepčević | Croatia, Germany, Romania |
| 2014 | Dear Lastan! | Dragi Lastane! | Irena Škorić | Croatia |
| 2015 | I Like That Super Most Best | Lijepo mi je s tobom, znaš | Eva Kraljević | Croatia |
| 2016 | Twilight of a Life | Ad ktze ha'zrikha | Sylvain Biegeleisen | Belgium, Israel |
| 2017 | The Eagle Huntress | N/A | Otto Bell | United Kingdom, Mongolia, United States |
| 2018 | The Other Side of Everything | Druga strana svega | Mila Turajlić | Serbia, France, Qatar |
| 2019 | Neighbors | Susjedi | Tomislav Žaja | Croatia |
Lifetime Achievement Award
- (The Lifetime Achievement Award (Počasni pečat) was introduced at the 2009 edition, for outstanding contribution to documentary filmmaking)
Bogdan Žižić (2009)
Jon Alpert (2009)
Special awards
Apart from the regular categories, the festival sometimes awards special prizes, often related to themes of a particular festival edition.
| Year | Award | Film | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
Sports and Music theme program |
Mark Morgan | ||
& Audience of One |
Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg Michael Jacobs | ||
 Marc Isaacs | |||
(Burma VJ: Reporter i et lukket land) |
 Anders Østergaard | ||
 Tatiana Huezo | |||
| Joshua Oppenheimer | |||
(Truba) |
 Vitaly Mansky | ||
| Andrew Droz Palermo & Tracy Droz Tragos | |||
