The Second Annual Croatian International Film Festival is Set to Shine in Sibenik
Created and spearheaded by Croatian-American actress and producer Ella Mische (and representing the first – and only – women-led film festival in Europe) the CIFF, set within the picturesque seaside town of Sibenik, promises an immersive experience that perfectly mixes some of the best in global filmmaking with the region's enchanting and ancient culture. The event is also sponsored this year by the Croatian National Tourist Board.
Mische's inspiration for CIFF stemmed from what she called a 'clear need,' and also a personal connection to her heritage. 'I started the festival two years ago because of two reasons, necessity in the market, and because over the years producers kept calling and wanting to film in Croatia,' she explained.
With Croatia burgeoning as this filming hotbed, in part thanks to its star turn as a location in hit vanguard television and blockbuster movies, Mische identified a gap in the business side of film distribution in South Central Europe. 'Here, filmmakers can make a movie and it never really sees the light of day outside three neighboring countries.' Among her goals was to give greater opportunities to this European indie market.
But this lack of exposure isn't simply omnidirectional. From the U.S. perspective, Mische noted much enthusiasm from American independent filmmakers who were eager to tap into new European audiences. A representative from Bleecker Street extended a heartfelt thank you for opening American independent film into the region, she recalled.
'It kind of works both ways,' said Mische. 'I think [South Central Europe] is a nice meeting spot for all these movies.'
And the excitement is palpable for 2025's CIFF. In addition to drawing VIPs from across the globe, including the former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Nathalie Rayes, the festival has a star-packed attendee list to match its impressive film lineup.
CIFF is set to open with 'The Friend,' a highly anticipated film starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray and distributed by the aforementioned Bleecker Street. Tyler Dioli, the production company's president and CMO, will also be on hand to host an informative – and topical – panel titled 'Demystifying Distribution International.'
The packed second-year lineup is something Mische described as 'gigantic.' The event will run from noon till midnight each of its four days and feature over 40 movies from all over the world and an awards ceremony on the final evening.
CIFF is also offering a rich array of panels and Q&As with actors, directors and writers. A new addition for 2025 is a focus on student film.These talented pupils, ranging from 12 to 13 years old, created a short film called 'The Missing Teacher,' which will premiere at the festival. 'I want to instill positivity, and give hope and opportunity to kids that would never otherwise see it,' Mische said.
For Mische, the festival is also a deeply personal endeavor to combine her Croatian heritage and life in New York City into 'something that brings them together.' The immediate and enthusiastic support she received was overwhelming, she said. Croatian-Americans are also flocking to the festival this year, including Counsel General of Croatia in L.A. Ree Pea, as well as Tony Kerum of Tony's Food Service, one of the largest such outfits in the city.
'Honestly, it was the easiest ask – everybody that I've asked, 'Do you want to come be a part of this?' Everybody said yes,' said Mische. Last year, over 50 friends and colleagues from New York and Los Angeles gathered in Sibenik, tying the inaugural festival experience with a sojourn in the beautiful seaside town.
The festival's growth in Sibenik has been both organic and impactful. While the first year presented challenges in establishing a new type of film event in Croatia, support from the tourism board has significantly expanded. A notable change this year is the relocation of the main screening venue from a to a picturesque city square. 'It seats 400 people, and it's open air,' Mische said. Other locations include a historic national theater and the town's unique Fortress Barone. The mix of these different venues is something Mische described as 'little vignettes in the city,' offering visitors a de facto tour while they take in the films.
Lodging in Sibernik is made easy by the seaside Amerun Hotel. Renovated in 2019, the complex was once a Dominican sanctuary. Hotelier Toni Purko mentioned that during excavation for the remodel, so many precious historic artifacts were unearthed they informed the hotel's design – a feeling that is as much old world as contemporary.
Boasting a background as an actor, producer and director, Mische acknowledges the immense undertaking. However, her years of building relationships in the industry have proven invaluable, enabling her to draw top talent and compelling content. While the immediate focus is on a successful event, the festival's future already looks bright, with whispers of even bigger names for next year. All of this hints at a trajectory that could soon see Sibenik join the ranks of globally recognized film festival destinations.
Mische, who approaches this responsibility as unflappably as any other role she takes on, did admit being slightly nervous about one important aspect as the festival grows and grows.
'This year, I have to write an opening speech,' she mused. 'Last year, I didn't. I just had little notes.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indianapolis Star
an hour ago
- Indianapolis Star
Ralph Lauren's Oak Bluffs collection celebrates historic Black beach community
Cricket sweaters, patchwork blanket, and distressed baseball caps. Each is part of the new collection called Polo Ralph Lauren for Oak Bluffs, celebrating the historically Black community of Oak Bluffs in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The collection is an evolution of the 2022 collection based on Historically Black Colleges Morehouse and Spelman, who are again partners in the Oak Bluffs collection, and is a part of the company's "Design with Intent" portfolio. "Ralph Lauren as a man, as a brand is sort of the world ambassador to Americana," James Jeter, Creative Director for Polo Men's at Ralph Lauren told USA TODAY. "With that comes this incredible responsibility for us to tell these incredible American stories as fully, as broadly, as accurately as possible." The collection deftly weaves HBCU campus style drawn from Morehouse and Spelman with resort wear that references the historic Black beach town and Black traditions. "It was just very important to tell that story, the multi-faceted, multi-dimensional experience that is the Black experience that also translates into the American experience," Dara Douglas, Product and Brand Lead for Design with Intent, told USA TODAY. It is accompanied by a documentary on the community directed by Cole Brown titled "A Portrait of the American Dream: Oak Bluffs" that debuted on the brand's YouTube page on July 24. "Oak Bluffs' unique history, traditions and sense of community deeply inspire me and speak to what we are all searching for – a place where you can be free, uncontrived, joyful and truly at home," Ralph Lauren, Executive Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of the eponymous preppy stalwart, said in a July 23 press release. Oak Bluffs was once a part of nearby Edgartown and was deemed to be the place "suitable" for Black workers at nearby resorts, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Oak Bluffs community envisioned by the collection started in earnest when Charles Shearer opened Shearer Cottage in 1912, according to The Root. The Black news outlet described the inn as, "an act of defiance in an America riddled with discrimination and racial segregation, where safe lodging for Black travelers was a rare luxury." "So by default really, Oak Bluffs becomes the place ... for young, educated, affluent African Americans—the politicians and the movie stars." Dr. Elaine Weintraub, historian and co-founder of the Martha's Vineyard African American Heritage Trail, told the Trust. At the heart of Oak Bluffs, according to the Root, is a beach called the Inkwell that served as a place where, "Black folks could swim, sunbathe, and just be, without getting side-eyed or harassed." Weintraub described vacationers to the Inkwell, Shearer Cottage, and Oak Bluffs throughout the decades as a "who's who" including Madame C.J. Walker, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., actress Ethel Waters, and singer Lionel Richie. "Well, I think perhaps I should say what you I think are aware of. Our people are deeply mystical, you might say spiritual and we have a an appreciation for place," Dr. Lawrence E. Carter Sr., the Dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel, said in the documentary. "How Martha's Vineyard became Martha's Vineyard has an awful lot to do with traffic, who came through here and by coming through here bequeathed something." Dorothy West, the youngest member of the Harlem Renaissance, said of Oak Bluffs, "I thought there was always summer here" in an interview published by the Martha's Vineyard Museum Oral History Channel. "I think historically it has represented a place where African Americans could be successful, could be around other African-Americans, could share in a culture and a place in the sun and that they'll own and that they'll belong," Weintraub said. Oak Bluffs still holds that same significance today. Netflix's show "Forever", released in March, showcased this on an episode titled "The Vineyard", allowing viewers to see the vibrance and richness that still exists in Oak Bluffs. The 2022 collection was described by Jeter as a "period piece" that drew from the ephemera of Morehouse and Spelman, of which Jeter and Douglas are alumni, from 1920's to the 1960's. "You'll notice that there's this kind of decorum (in the 2022 collection). We leaned a little bit into politics of respectability, which really started such an incredible conversation," Jeter said. He added that imagery for the collection's campaign was "intentionally less serious" and leaned into a multi-generational interpretation of summers on the shore. "Quite frequently people think of the output that comes from the Black experience, whether it's through entertainment, through sports. So you constantly see the Black body in motion, but this notion of rest and relaxation as a space that the black body could occupy I think is quite revolutionary," Douglas said. The collection comes as companies have backed away from concepts labeled DEI following pressure from the Trump administration and other right-wing forces. Jeter and Douglas both pointed to the collection as a part of the company's commitment to widening the brand's view of what is included in "Americana," with James saying "we intended to stick to that."
Elle
an hour ago
- Elle
Nancy Meyers Reacts With Surprise to News of 'The Holiday' Limited Series
THE RUNDOWN On August 1, it was reported that Nancy Meyers's 2006 film The Holiday was in development as a limited series for Apple TV+ by Deadline. But it looks like Meyers had no idea about the new show and was quick to comment on the production in an Instagram Story. Sharing a screenshot of a report on The Holiday series, Meyers wrote over it, 'News to me. Imagine my surprise when I opened Instagram and this was the first post I saw.' Here's everything we know about the project so far. In the original film, two women trade homes in the U.K. countryside and Los Angeles after struggling with their personal lives. Amanda Woods is a Hollywood trailer editor who ends her engagement and Iris is a newspaper columnist stuck in a rut. After trading spaces, Amanda meets Iris's widower brother, Graham, and surprises herself by reconnecting emotionally to love. Iris meets Amanda's neighbor, Arthur, a forgotten Hollywood icon, and then meets a film composer named Miles; both men help her transform. The series will likely be some version of Meyers's original story, keeping 'the setup of the movie about a single American and single British woman living very different lives who swap their houses for the holidays and find love in the process.' The original cast included Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black, but Deadline stated the show will feature 'new characters,' and thus new actors. But maybe we can hope for a cameo? Krissie Ducker is serving as the writer and executive producer for The Holiday series, along with comedian Rob Delaney as a consultant on the script. Not yet. This post will be updated.
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Pope thrills hundreds of thousands of young Catholics at Holy Year youth festival
'Friendship can really change the world. Friendship is a path to peace,' he said. 'How much the world needs missionaries of the Gospel who are witnesses of justice and peace!' Advertisement But history's first American pope also alerted them to some tragic news: Two young people who had made the pilgrimage to Rome had died, one reportedly of cardiac arrest, while a third was hospitalized, Leo told the crowd during the vigil service. Leo was to return to the field for an early morning Mass on Sunday morning to close out the celebration. For the past week, these bands of young Catholics from around the world have poured into Rome for their special Jubilee celebration, in a Holy Year in which 32 million people are expected to descend on the Vatican to participate in a centuries-old pilgrimage to the seat of Catholicism. Advertisement The young people have been traipsing down cobblestoned streets in color-coordinated T-shirts, praying the Rosary and singing hymns with guitars, bongo drums and tambourines shimmying alongside. Using their flags as tarps to shield them from the sun, they have taken over entire piazzas for Christian rock concerts and inspirational talks, and stood for hours at the Circus Maximus to confess their sins to 1,000 priests offering the sacrament in a dozen different languages. 'It is something spiritual, that you can experience only every 25 years,' said Francisco Michel, a pilgrim from Mexico. 'As a young person, having the chance to live this meting with the pope I feel it is a spiritual growth.' It all has the vibe of a World Youth Day, the Catholic Woodstock festival that St. John Paul II inaugurated and made famous in Rome in 2000 at the very same Tor Vergata field. Then, before an estimated 2 million people, John Paul told the young pilgrims they were the 'sentinels of the morning' at the dawn of the third millennium. Officials had initially expected 500,000 youngsters this weekend, but Leo and organizers from the stage said the number could reach 1 million. The Vatican didn't immediately provide a final estimate. 'It's a bit messed up, but this is what is nice about the Jubilee,' said Chloe Jobbour, a 19-year-old Lebanese Catholic who was in Rome with a group of more than 200 young members of the Community of the Beatitudes, a France-based charismatic group. Advertisement She said, for example, that it had taken two hours to get dinner at a KFC overwhelmed by orders Friday night. The Salesian school that offered her group housing is an hour away by bus. But Jobbour, like many in Rome this week, didn't mind the discomfort: It's all part of the experience. 'I don't expect it to be better than that. I expected it this way,' she said, as members of her group gathered on church steps near the Vatican to sing and pray Saturday morning before heading out to Tor Vergata. Those Romans who didn't flee the onslaught have been inconvenienced by the additional strain on the city's notoriously insufficient public transport system. Residents are sharing social media posts of outbursts by Romans at kids flooding subway platforms and crowding bus stops that have delayed and complicated their commutes to work. But other Romans have welcomed the enthusiasm the youngsters have brought. Premier Giorgia Meloni offered a video welcome, marveling at the 'extraordinary festival of faith, joy and hope' that the young people had created. 'I think it's marvelous,' said Rome hairdresser Rina Verdone, who lives near the Tor Vergata field and woke up Saturday to find a gaggle of police outside her home as part of the massive, 4,000-strong operation mounted to keep the peace. 'You think the faith, the religion is in difficulty, but this is proof that it's not so.' Verdone had already made plans to take an alternate route home Saturday afternoon, that would require an extra kilometer (half-mile) walk, because she feared the 'invasion' of kids in her neighborhood would disrupt her usual bus route. But she said she was more than happy to make the sacrifice. Advertisement 'You think of invasion as something negative. But this is a positive invasion,' she said.
