Vespasian’s Arena, where the Festival has been taking place ever since its foundation, is its trademark, and the shows under the starry sky gathers up to 5000 spectators. The traditional festival awards are Gold Arenas (author: Dimitrije Popović).

Something more about this manifestation, for SEEbtm magazine, will tell us Mr Zlatko Vidackovic, art director of Pula Film festival.

1. Pula Film Festival has a long history and tradition. When was the Festival held for the first time and how has it developed since?

One of the world’s oldest film festivals, Pula Film Festival was held for the first time in 1953 being initiated by Marijan Rotar as the international cinematographic presentation to be regarded as the most important film event in Yugoslavia since 1954 until the break-up, attended by numerous local and international reporters and film-makers, including such celebrities as Orson Welles, Sophia Loren, Sam Peckinpah, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Yul Brynner. As of 1992, Pula hosted the Croatian Film Festival, and since 2001 the festival has regained its international focus, including the awards for the best international films. Many awarded Croatian films at Pula Film Festival were also awarded in international festivals: Tu (aka Here), Maršal (aka Marshal Tito’s Split), Svjedoci (aka Witnesses), Ta divna splitska noć (aka A Wonderful Night in Split), Fine mrtve djevojke (aka Nice Dead Girls), Put lubenica (The Melon Route)…

2. One of the oldest film festivals in Europe has been visited by a large number of film-makers and film stars. How much has the popularity and attendance of this festival added to the development of tourism and the popularisation of destination for Pula itself and Croatia?

During the last fifteen years, the Festival was attended by film stars such as John Malkovich, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kinglsey, Jeremy Irons, Greta Scacchi and Christopher Lee, then the directors Phillip Noyce and Jiri Menzel. Festival’s popularity added to the development of tourism and the popularization of Pula as a tourist destination, which has been recognized by the Croatian National Tourist Board who support it financially.

3. What will be this year’s surprise for the Film Festival visitors?

There is a special surprise we are preparing for the spectators outside Pula, since a part of the festival programme will be shown for the first time in top 5 Croatian summer festivals: Dubrovačke ljetne igre (Dubrovnik Summer Festival), Splitsko ljeto (Split Summer Festival), Riječke ljetne noći (Rijeka Summer Nights), Amadeo Theatre, Zagreb and Osječko ljeto kulture (Osijek Summer of Culture).
The National Programme of the 57^th edition is expected to show at least seven new Croatian films. On Saturday, 24^th July, the Croatian Film Marathon starts featuring all the National Programme films. In the course of the Festival, we will show a short-film selection and present all Croatian feature fiction films underway.

The International Programme Europolis-Meridians at Kaštel and at the cinema Valli will feature a number of films selected from the world’s most renowned film festivals (Venice, Cannes, Berlin, Rome, Karlovy Vary…). The retrospective within the European Film Directors Programme will be dedicated to the Italian Oscar winner Giuseppe Tornatore.
The films in the Popular Programme in Arena – quality genre films for wider audience – will be screened after the National Programme films have been showed. The Valli cinema will feature children film matinee within the Pulica Programme.

4. Are there any intentions of networking and cooperating with the film festivals in the region?

As a sign of the launched cooperation between the film festivals in the region, Cinema City Festival, Novi Sad will show the last year’s winners from Pula, and the Pula spectators will be able to see a series of co-productions with the regional countries.