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Lukas Nola was a master of Croatian cinema, crafting poignant tales that shone lights into shadows of his homeland. With his final film, The Escort, this beloved auteur saved his boldest work for last—a thrilling drama with depths beyond its gripping surface.

We meet Miro, a respected family man visiting a hotel one night. There, tragedy strikes when an escort mysteriously sent to his room is found dead. This plunges Miro into a conspiracy forged by threatening staff. As sinister forces close in, clues hint of rot beneath a picturesque facade.

Nola was revered for works exploring Croatian society with empathy, warmth, and thought-provoking insight. The Escort proved no different, offering an engrossing saga and one final opportunity to appreciate his gifts. Beneath slick intrigue lay piercing questions about morality, cooperation versus innocence, and societal unrest bubbling near surfaces. Nola invited us to reflect on the fragile lines between opportunity and ruin,...

The 2024 Karlovy Vary Film Festival in Czechia begins in a few weeks and this is one of the films premiering there in the main competition. Celebration is a Croatian drama marking the feature directorial debut of Croatian filmmaker Bruno Anković, telling of a tumultuous time in the history of this small, mountainous country in Southeastern Europe. A young Croatian villager's innocence is shattered by the harsh realities of war, deprivation, and political turmoil between 1926 and 1945, leading him down a dark path. It's a chilling look at how people end up seduced by right-wing ideologies. Starring Bernard Tomić, Krešimir Mikić, Klara Fiolić, Lars Štern, Jan Doležal, and Nedim Nezirović. This film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Damir Karakaš features wonderful shots of the landscape, it's also a testimony of systemic brutality and demonstrates the reasons why innocent people become easy quarry for ideological crusaders. Sounds like a...

The Sarajevo International Film Festival has unveiled the nominees for its second annual TV awards with 17 series from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Slovenia represented across the nominees.

The local series up for awards are: Advokado, Besa 2, Block 27, Black Wedding, Strange Kind of Loves, Dolina rož, Awake, Lenin’s Park, Crazy, Confused, Normal, Underneath 2, Mrkomir I, Bad Blood, The Last Socialist Artefact, United Brothers, Killers of My Father 5, The Silence and Time of Evil.

This year, the award categories have expanded to include drama series and comedy and winners will be honored with the fest’s lauded Heart of Sarajevo award, a prize usually given to the festival’s competition winner.

The Sarajevo Film Festival established the awards for TV series last year, with the aim of promoting and showcasing the highest quality regional television series in the past 12 months to promote their international placement.

This claustrophobic thriller from Denmark is the first feature from director/co-writer Rasmus Kloster Bro. Old-fashioned ‘trapped-in-a-box’-style scares fuse with a streak of social commentary, but Cutterhead can be enjoyed simply as an effective thriller about a group of people trapped underground in terrifying circumstances.

Photojournalist Rie (Christine Sonderris) is covering the construction of the Copenhagen Metro. The film opens with her descent by industrial elevator down into the underground site, where she begins to interview the workers. Most seem uninterested in her project, though Ivo (Kresimir Mikic) and his assistant Bharan (Samson Semere) at least provide candid responses to her otherwise bland line of questioning - “What do you like best about your job...

Cowboys wins audience award, Hush also wins multiple prizes.

The 60th Pula Film Festival – the country’s national film festival — comes to a close today celebrating a particularly strong year for Croatian film. Co-production Circles and Croatian national production A Stranger [pictured] each won a slew of top prizes.

Croatian filmmaking is having something of a boom time at the moment, both in terms of number of productions and their international appeal – both Circles and A Stranger played in Berlin’s Forum, and Dual and The Priest’s Children were buzzy titles in Karlovy Vary earlier this month.

Pula presented a record 24 titles in its competitions for national films and minority co-productions. The healthy levels of production are in part due to support from the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, but also seeing local broadcasters backing films for the first time in 9 years — such as festival opening comedy Handymen (Majstori) by Dalibor Matanic.

Of course...