This summer, Kino Zona will return to its familiar location – the plateau between the Zadar City Library and the Youth Centre. This space proved to be an ideal setting for open-air film evenings last year. At a press conference there, the programme for the eighth season of Zadar's summer cinema, organised by the Centre for Independent Culture Zadar, was presented.
This year's edition will feature more than twenty film nights, showcasing a variety of festival and genre titles, Croatian films, and guest appearances by filmmakers. Additionally, there will be new programme collaborations and screenings at various locations throughout Zadar County.
Kino Zona's programme manager, Andrej Fric, said that he hopes the plateau between the City Library and the Youth Centre will become the permanent home of Zadar's open-air cinema.
'We are at the same location as last year, and I hope it will become permanent, because it offers peace and quiet, and the opportunity to truly enjoy films,' he said. At the same time, we are moving events slightly away from the peninsula and presenting audiences with a different urban space,' said Fric.
This year's Kino Zona summer programme was curated by Fric, Brlek and Pokrajac, and audiences can once again look forward to a selection of European auteur cinema, festival hits, Croatian films, short films and popular genre works.
The Zadar Tourist Board is supporting the project once again, recognising Kino Zona as an important part of the city’s cultural and tourist offering during the summer months. Tourist Board director Iva Bencun emphasised that the programme has been attracting both local audiences and numerous international visitors for years.
We are extremely pleased to support projects of this quality, which enrich Zadar’s cultural diversity. The screenings are also of interest to foreign visitors, and we are particularly glad that this new location is being used to draw the attention of citizens and guests alike to other valuable urban spaces outside the peninsula,' Bencun pointed out.
In addition to the programme in Zadar, Kino Zona continues to expand its film offering beyond the city. Following screenings on Pag and Ugljan, the summer programme will visit Zaton, Nin, Vrsi, Petrčane, Diklo and Zemunik with the aim of making quality film content accessible to as many people as possible.
‘This year, we have more locations across the county than ever before. The idea is to further develop the programme throughout the county and enrich every possible space through film,' said Fric, expressing hope that the programme will expand to other Zadar islands in the future.
The summer cinema season opens on 28 June with Once Upon a Time in the Cinema by Irish director David Gleeson, a tribute to cinemas and the art of film. This will be followed by Obsession by Curry Barker, a film that has demonstrated how even a small production can achieve great success with audiences and critics alike.
The programme will also include two horror films, two science fiction films, a series of festival titles, and Nolan's The Odyssey, which, due to high audience demand, will be screened twice.
The programme features a selection of films that have made a significant impact at major international festivals. These include Miroirs No. 3 by Christian Petzold, The Poet by Colombian director Simón Mesa Soto, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas, Resurrection by Chinese director Bi Gan, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You by Mary Bronstein, and Heretic by directing duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.
New this year is the launch of the Subversive Zone, a new film cycle created in collaboration with the Subversive Film Festival in Zagreb. Once a month, the programme will explore various social topics through film, with titles selected by Dina Pokrajac. The cycle begins in August with Che Guevara: The Last Comrades and will continue throughout the year.
Croatian films will also feature in this season's programme, alongside meetings with filmmakers. At the end of July, Kino Zona will screen Koke by Igor Jelinović, a film about family relationships and inheritance on the island of Hvar. The programme will also include the documentary Yugo Goes to America by Filip Grujić and Aleksa Borković. Audiences will also have the opportunity to see the Palestinian thriller To a Land Unknown by Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel, which has won numerous awards at international festivals.
Short films have accompanied the main screenings since Kino Zona's inception and remain an important part of the programme. This year, works by Sonja Tarokić, Filip Antonio Lizatović, Pavo Marinković, and Zadar-based author Dina Uglešić will be shown.
The summer season finale, planned from 21 to 23 August, will celebrate one of the most famous film franchises of all time: the original Star Wars trilogy. Alongside the screenings, there will be workshops, exhibitions and other events, and Michael White, who worked on the sets of this cult franchise, will return to Zadar once again.
Alongside the film programme, Kino Zona is introducing a number of organisational changes. Tickets will cost six euros this year, and a newsletter is being launched to help audiences follow the screening schedule more easily.
'It is becoming increasingly difficult to reach audiences through social media nowadays, so we are launching a newsletter,' said Fric. We want people to receive information about screenings quickly and easily,' said Fric.
The plateau between the Zadar City Library and the Youth Centre will soon become a summer cinema under the stars once again. The programme begins on 28 June with a screening of Once Upon a Time in the Cinema, and all screenings throughout the summer will start at 9 p.m.
