Fourth Annual Dubrovnik International Film Festival

By Rada Djurica

For the past three years, Dubrovnik International Film Festival has shown a great selection of films to an international audience, as well as a showcase of present Croatia’s national film industry. DIFF 2005 hosted big names Christopher Walken, Peter Medak, Emily Watson, John Hurt, and Gregory Widen. Walken and Watson received the prestigious Libertas and Argosy Awards for their outstanding contribution to film and extraordinary career achievement. Also in 2005, the festival held an important festival film industry strategy session, with panels on screenwriting, film, literature and publicity with panelists John Hurt, Dr. James Ragan, Hugh Linchean, Marvin Siegel, Hilary Heath, Oren Jacoby, Peter Medak, Daniel Rosenthal, Gregory Widen, Andrew Dean, and Mile Rupcic, the winner of the Hartley Merrill International Screenwriting Prize.

In 2006, the five-day festival in the magic town of Dubrovnik was a celebration of film, with mainly local attendance. The fourth Dubrovnik Film Festival announced SEA FILMS, a new program of films thematically connected to the sea, because of Dubrovnik's extraordinary geography, history and traditional ties to the sea. Dubrovnik Film Festival Founder and Director Ms. Ziggy Mrkich curated a selection of NEW CROATIAN FILM, displayed at the Silver Lake Film Festival in Los Angeles in March. This was the first time that Croatian films were presented as a program and part of a major film festival outside of Croatia. Ms. Mrkich also worked on a similar project presented in Brussells; her background includes working in film development, radio and photography.

DIFF 2006

The winner of the Best Feature Film Award was Branko Schmidt’s The Melon Route (which won awards in other international festivals, as well). The Best Documentary Award went to Philip Grabsky’s In Search of Mozart. The Best Short Award went to Stacy Harrison’s Gorgeous Labour of Love, and the Special Mention Award went to Jennifer Winston’s documentary, Fisher Poets.

An outstanding international film selection as well as the selection of national programs culminated with The Libertas Award, which was given to Josip Genda, a Croatian theatre director and actor who recently passed away. The Libertas Award was accepted by ex-Yugoslavian, now Croatian actor Milan Strljic of Split Croatian National Theatre.

In another program, Maya Gregl, an editor for Croatian Television, presented her book of poetry and the short film Longing, directed by Tomislav Gregl, for which she has written the screenplay.

Reviews: The Melon Route, Tressette, Fisher Poets, Longing, St. Vlaho Hope, Faith and Love