What we do - Zagreb Film

Production

Zagreb Film’s activities include the production of animated, documentary and experimental films, the distribution of its own films and those of other producers, the organization of educational programs such as the Small School of Cartoon Film and the International Workshop of Animated Film, the organization of the House of Croatian Film, the management of the Stop-Animation Studio, co-production cooperation with other production houses in the production of animated, documentary and experimental films, cooperation with the Department of Animated Film and New Media of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in the production and distribution of graduate films and the sale of educational content for primary and secondary schools.

Distribution

Restoration and digitization

The institution therefore systematically approached the film archive preservation plan: namely, the plan is to digitize the entire Zagreb film archive and bring the quality of the content closer to viewers. The original negatives of all films are kept in the Croatian State Archives. The employees of the Croatian State Archives actively participate in the restoration, i.e. supervise the implementation and quality of the procedure, and Zagreb Film then supplies the HDA with new material for preservation in new digital formats. The restoration process of the rich archive of Zagreb film has been going on for nine years, and the restoration of all important films of the Zagreb Cartoon School and numerous high-quality documentaries is planned. Restored films are often shown on television or in special programs at international festivals around the world. The project is systematically supported by the City of Zagreb and the Croatian Audiovisual Center. From 2007 – when Zagreb Film began with the restoration and digitization of the legendary series Professor Baltazar – until 2016, the first, second, third and fourth series of Professor Baltazar, the compilation Dragulji Zagreb Film, the films of Dušan Vukotić and Borivoj Dovniković, the compilation Best of Zagreb film 1 and 2 and 17 animated films, and in 2013, 2014 and 2015 another 27 animated films were restored. In 2012, in cooperation with ZagrebDox, a selection of documentaries by Krsto Papić was restored. Since approximately twenty hours of animated film have been restored, in 2016 Zagreb Film started with a major restoration of documentaries by Kreša Golik, Zoran Tadić, Bogdan Žižić, Ante Babaja and Obrad Gluščević. In 2017, the plan is to restore the most important films by Obrad Gluščević, Zvonimir Berković, Rudolf Sremac, Bogdan Žižić, Zlatko Sudović, Kreša Golik, Nikola Babić, Eduard Galić, Petr Krelja, etc.

Zagreb film EDU

International animation film workshop

The International Animated Film Workshop was created in 2010 in order to enable younger authors to train with the world’s greatest masters of animated film, who in turn would get to know the potential of Croatian animators. The workshop was held on the island of Rab for four years, and the past three workshops were held in Komiža on the island of Vis. The workshop has been led by distinguished lecturers: in 2016 Ed Hooks (acting for animators), in 2015 Aleksej Aleksejev (character design), in 2014 Tim Allen and Ivana Bošnjak (stop motion movement and animation), in 2013 Tim Allen and Ivana Bošnjak ( stop-animation, model making), 2012 Aleksej Alekseyev (development of pilot for TV series), 2011 Phil Mulloy and Vera Neubauer (script development) and 2010 Olga and Priit Pärn (production of shooting book). The workshops were well received by participants and lecturers, which speaks in favor of this form of education. Such knowledge is precisely necessary for our young authors. Since 2016, the workshop has been open to professionals, young professionals and students of art academies, primarily from the Department of Animated Film at ALU.

A small cartoon school

The small school of cartoons has been running continuously for the seventeenth year in a row, organized and realized by the Zagreb Film Institute.

By founding this animator and cartoon educational workshop, Zagreb Film intended to help the spread of film culture to school age and provide the opportunity for young and gifted students, cartoonists, to find their space, knowledge and knowledge in this specific film-artistic expression. A cartoon is a team effort and involves a number of participants, sometimes with very different skills. We are convinced that Zagreb film is precisely the most invited to take on the task of this type of education and enable children, as well as other citizens, to learn about the cartoon-film craft and this way of artistic expression.

The Small School program is intended for children of primary school age. Through this program, participants are introduced to understanding the abstract concept of film time, movement and story. They are given the possibility of creative expression and encounter with basic film terminology and different techniques of animated film. During the duration of the program, all stages of film production are covered: creating a concept, writing a story, drawing a storyboard, developing visuals, animating, recording voices and sounds, and editing.

The participants are approached completely individually, and the main goal is to familiarize the participants with the concept of animation and to make a completely individual short animated film in the chosen technique (cartoon, collage, puppet, sand, digital animation…) executed in such a way as to highlight the affinities of the participants as much as possible.

The host of the program at Vlaška 70 is Božidar Trkulja, director, animator and film critic.