Early summer will this year once again be marked by the Festival of Tolerance, whose 15th edition is scheduled to take place from 1 to 10 July at Bundek lake in Zagreb. The visitors can look forward to successful and intriguing film titles, interesting and provocative thought-provoking exhibitions and socially important masterclasses and training programmes. The entire programming will be complemented by an attractive musical line-up, altogether taking place open air, under the bright skies of Zagreb. The entire Festival programme has been guided by the same mission for 15 years now: to promote and foster a tolerant, progressive and solidary society.
“Over the past 14 years we had to face all sorts of hardships, from changing the venue to working under the pandemic, but what didn’t kill us definitely made us stronger. We realised the potential we had and how creative we could be to curate as a good a programme as we could for our audience. Our main mission was still the most important, to promote tolerance through good programming and to be loud and uncompromising while doing so. This year’s edition is particularly important to us because we feel a tremendous need to let the voice of the disenfranchised be heard in such times,” said Nataša Popović, the director of the Festival of Tolerance.
The festival will screen around fifty film titles, including the Swiss drama with elements of thriller The Saint of the Impossible, the Dutch music documentary Here We Move Here We Groove, and the Czech youth film The Pack, focusing on bullying in sports. The red thread in selecting the films, like previous years, has been promoting the idea of tolerance, dialogue, respect. The films aim to stimulate viewers to reconsider today’s events and learn from history how to avoid tragedies from the past. The films focus on the rise of fascism, negation of the Holocaust, prejudices towards refugees and violation of the rights of women and homosexuals.
“Organising the 15th edition was a huge responsibility. We have prepared an amazing film programme which will certainly thrill the audience desirous of intelligent, important and cheerful, optimistic films. We have curated a great side programme as well, like two independent exhibitions and performances by accomplished musicians whose melodies will echo across the lake,” said Hrvoje Pukšec, the film programme director of the Festival of Tolerance.
In addition to outstanding films, the visitors will have a chance to see two exhibitions motivating them to think about tolerance and how far we are ready to go in advocating it. The In Focus exhibition is a continuation of the Festival’s practice of independent exhibition production focusing on the issues of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers in Croatian society. The second exhibition is a video installation under the title Us., carried out by Sekvenca production company and directed by one of the finest up-and-coming Croatian directors, Jure Pavlović. The aim is to raise awareness about the issue of refugees by reminding the public that such a situation can happen to anyone and that refugees need to be treated the same way we treat ourselves.
The music line-up of this year’s 15th Festival of Tolerance will be headlined by The Beat Fleet, Edo Maajka, Vlatko Stefanovski and many others.
The events are free of charge, as always, and the programme is co-funded by the City of Zagreb, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, UNHCR Croatia and other partners.
