The 63rd edition of the Pula Film Festival, to be held from the 9th to 16th of July 2016, was presentated on June 17th in Zagreb. Festival Director Gordana Restović presented the organizational achievements of the 63rd Festival. President of the Arts Council Hrvoje Pukšec presented the most important information about the programme, the members of the jury and the results of the survey on the most important Croatian films in the last 25 years. Tanja Miličić, member of the Arts Council announced the arrival of the world-famous director Marta Mészáros and a preview of the new Croatian series Novine (The Paper) by Dalibor Matanić. Uroš Živanović, head of the screenplay platform Palunko in the Croatian Film Association, talked about this year's co-operation through Pula PROfessional. The audience was addressed by Nina Išek Međugorac, Director of Corporate Communications in Croatian Telecom, partner of the Festival and Ana Peruško, spokeswoman of the KMAG-KIA Motors Adria Group, the new Festival sponsor.

63rd Pula Film Festival brings:
• More than half of the Croatian programme is premiers!
• Festival year marked by women film forces
• 7 best films of the past 25 years of independence
• Pula PROfessional and Palunko about the importance of screenplay in the film world
• Preview of the new Croatian series Novine (The Paper) by Dalibor Matanić

Festival Director Gordana Restović expressed satisfaction with the organizational preparations for the 63rd edition of the National Film Festival. The festival is increasing the number of visitors and programmes as well as professional associates, workshops, participants and students every year so the organisation of such large and important film event is also more demanding. Since this is a national programme, the responsibility is even greater, but thanks to our team of valuable associates, even this year we will enable a number of film makers to promote their works, to compete, educate, enter into new quality cooperations and celebrate film art and all visitors to have a unique experience by enjoying the best annual film section under the starry sky in the majestic arena, stressed Restović.

The inclusion of all kinds of feature films and minority co-productions strengthened the selection of films and in this year's competition a record number of 105 films were registered for the Croatian programme. Arts Council members, Hrvoje Pukšec, its President and members Mike Downey and Tanja Miličić chose 16 feature films and 18 short films in the selection process that make up the 63rd Festival Croatian programme. Things slowly fall into place, a large number of entries and a large number of premiers. The concept on which we have insisted in this past three years was clearly understood and accepted. This is a clear sign that we're doing a good job and that Croatian filmmakers certainly know what Pula Film Festival means to all of them. Simply put, Pula is their home said Hrvoje Pukšec.

Through the selection of the International programme, the Festival remains one of the few festivals in Croatia which seeks films "without distributors". In this way 16 international feature films were selected. Pukšec stressed that Festivals have to discover new authors, poetry, trends and must offer films which unfortunately do not come to cinemas, on VOD platforms or television. Speaking about the other 63rd Festival film programmes, Tanja Miličić added, this year's Festival is marked by women forces in film with an extremely large number of selected films directed by women, a retrospective dedicated to the world known director Marta Mészáros and we will hold a round table on “Women in European and Croatian film” as part of Pula PROfessional programme.

Marta Mészáros is one of the world's most remarkable film directors whose films have marked the most important international film festivals and greatly changed the world in which we live. She is the first woman to have directed a Hungarian film and the first woman to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. This is only a fraction of her biography and filmography, and its framework we bring in this year's retrospective programme.

Apart from the current Croatian and international films at this year's festival, you will be able to see the best films from recent Croatian history. After twenty five years of independent film production in Croatia, Pula Film Festival decided to find out which are the best films since Croatia’s independence. The lists of the best films appear sporadically and mostly come from film critics. We wanted to expand the search for the best Croatian film in the last quarter of a century to a wider circle of film professionals and find out what their thoughts are, explained Puksec. Members of film pofessional associations (Croatian Film Directors’ Guild, Croatian Cinematographers Society, Croatian Producers Association, Film Makers Association of Croatia, and Croatian Society of Film Critics) had the task to select the five best films but found seven (due to the equal number of points received). The magnificent seven make the programme of this year's Pula Cinemateque: What Iva Recorded on October 21st, 2003, Tomislav Radić (Grand Golden Arena and 3 Golden Arenas), Celestial Body, Lukas Nola (4 Golden Arenas), The Blacks, Goran Dević and Zvonimir Jurić (3 Golden Arenas), Fine Dead Girls, Dalibor Matanić (Grand Golden Arena and 5 Golden Arenas), The Reaper, Zvonimir Jurić (3 Golden Arenas), Metastases, Branko Schmidt (Grand Golden Arena and 2 Golden Arenas) and The High Sun, Dalibor Matanić (Grand Golden Arena and 5 Golden Arenas).

Adding special spice to this year's programme is a preview of the new Croatian series Novine (The Paper) by Dalibor Matanić. The first two episodes will be shown as part of the Festival which all the visitors will be able to see.

This year's educational and industry programme PULA PROfessional, designed for film professionals and students of audiovisual activities, in cooperation with Palunko, Croatian Film Association’s screenplay platform, stresses the importance of screenplay. By 2015, only one book was published in Croatia about the basic component of every film creation: screenplay. It took more than half a century in order to witness a new one - Jasmine Kallay’s manual: Write a screenplay, organized by Palunko, and Uroš Živanović talking about it. In view of these facts, Pula Film Festival decided to react quickly and in accordance with our own principles in establishing Pula PROfessional programme (focus on neglected film professions) we invited four guests who are very aware of the screenwriting problems: Jasmina Kallay, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Kate Leys and Jelena Paljan, explained Pukšec. Through lectures, which will cover the basics of creating, writing, editing, and the promotion of film screenplays, interested professionals at this year's festival will get a clear insight into the answers to the basic questions that plague all screenwriters in the world, how to design and then write a script for a film that will be someday produced and finally enjoyed?

This year's 63rdPula Film Festival jury members are:
• CROATIAN FEATURE FILM PROGRAMME: Bruno Kragić (Croatia, film scholar), Labin Mitevska (Macedonia, actress and producer), Hrvoje Mrsic (Croatia, Editor), Don Ranvaud (Great Britain, producer and journalist) and Sanja Vejnović (Croatia, actress).
• CROATIAN SHORT AND STUDENT PROGRAMMES: Chris Auty (Italy, producer), Daniel Kušan (Croatia, director) and Daniel Rafaelić (Croatia, film critic)
• INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME: Gaby Babić (Germany, director of Wiesbaden), Stevan Filipović (Serbia, director and editor), and Ivona Juka (Croatia, director)
• NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS: Mia Pećina (Croatia, producer), directed by Calin Peter Netzer (Romania, director) and John Ostrochovský (Slovakia, producer and director)

Nina Išek Međugorac, Director of corporate communications of Croatia Telecom, said many years of continuous support and coverage of Croatian Film Festival prove that it is an event of great importance for Croatia in cinematography and culturally as a whole. We have been cooperating with the Festival for 14 years and are very much looking forward to the cooperation at this year's festival. With many of the top national and international film achievements that will be shown, we are pleased to announce that this year we will provide film fans who unfortunately will not be able to attend in Pula, several top titles in the MAXtv Video Store and the MAXtv To Go platform immediately after the festival screenings without payment of any additional fees.

The new sponsor of the 63rd Pula Film Festival, KMAG-KIA Motors Adria Group was introduced. This year, Kia Motors will provide a fleet of vehicles for guests of the Festival to enable timely and comfortably travel to the festival site, said spokeswoman KIA Ana Peruško.

Check the photo gallery HERE.