The 9th Zagreb Film Festival will be held from 16th-23rd of October 2011, on  on several locations in Zagreb, showing about 90 films in seven sets of programmes including : new film debuts – 12 feature films, 10 short films, and 16 documentaries, competing for the festival’s award – the Golden Pram, Croatian short films, Bib for Kids, My First Film, The Great 5 (new European films from Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Britain and Austria.

For more detailed info and full programme visit ZFF homepage: www.zagrebfilmfestival.com

Croatia Airlines, the Croatian national air carrier, has recently officially confirmed that it has introduced many new direct flights in their summer timetable.

New seasonal flights are being added from Zadar airport to Munich and Zurich.

The first regular flight from Zadar to the Bavarian metropolis is scheduled for 3 May whilst from 29 September airplanes on that line will fly twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Direct connection between Zadar and Zurich will start on 20 May and last until 30 September. This line will also operate twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.

In the summer timetable Croatia Airlines will connect Zagreb with Istanbul on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Up until now Croatia Airlines had only been leasing seats on the flights of Turkish Airlines for this connection.

Return flights between Dubrovnik and Venice will also be established twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, from 19 May to 23 October this year. The aircraft which will connect these two pearls of the Adriatic is Dash 8-Q400, with the capacity of 76 seats. New flights will also be introduced from Dubrovnik to Athens (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays) and from Dubrovnik to Belgrade (Mondays and Wednesdays).

There will also be flights from Split to Hamburg (Tuesdays and Saturdays), and once again, the line between Rijeka and London has been established, with flights on Wednesdays.

Another novelty is that Croatia Airlines, in cooperation with SAS, will fly via Copenhagen to New York and Washington, starting from this summer.

Italian airline Air One, owned by Alitalia, will from 25 September this year introduce a direct line from Milano
Malpensa to Zagreb. It will fly three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

Visit Croatia Airlines for more info and booking.

The 1st Festival of Croatian Animated Film, dedicated to Croatian short animated films, will be held on 21 and 22 February in Zagreb in Kino Europa cinema. The Festival resulted from traditional Days of Croatian Animation and it will be held every two years. The Festivals aim is to screen Croatian films and to promote animation as an artistic form. Beside film screenings it will also feature round tables, workshops and numerous presentations. Detailed festival’s programme is here: hrvatska-animacija.org/program/

Zagreb

This year, the female slalom was held on January 3rd, while the male slalom will be held three days later during night.  Both events at the Audi FIS World Cup “VIP Snow Queen Trophy 2010” will be held on Sljeme, the tallest peak of the Medvednica mountain overlooking Zagreb.

Since the first year of the World Cup visiting Zagreb, the Sljeme race  has provided an excellent trail and superior organisation and has been one of the most generous when it comes to the awards, but it is best known for the unique atmosphere, created before during and after the events, by the great number of the audience, ski-enthusiasts from Zagreb and other parts of Croatia, cheering for all skiers with the same enthusiasm.

The Sljeme races are also special as they are held in close proximity to a city. Zagreb is the only European metropolis hosting the “world ski circus” in its back yard. It should be pointed out that that the Zagreb race had the highest TV viewership out of all the FIS world cup races. This was in Germany, with 4.72 million viewers of the women’s race on the ZDF TV broadcaster and 4.67 million viewers of the men’s race on the ARD TV broadcaster.

Brother and sister Ivica and Janica Kostelic, have made their first ski steps on Sljeme. In her career, Janica has won a total of 30 FIS World Cup races, three Crystal globes and three small globes as the slalom winner. She is a five-time world-champion, and is one of the rare athletes who have won as many as four Olympic gold medals at the Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Torino in 2006. Her brother Ivica is still successfully participating in the World Cup, in which he has won one of the medals nine times. He has also won the small crystal globe as the overall slalom winner, but his biggest success is the title of the slalom world champion in St Moritz in 2003 and winning the silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Torino in 2006.

Medvednica is a nature park, that is, with its highest peak Sljeme (1,033 m), the favourite excursion destination of Zagreb locals, who use it to run away to nature, relaxation and recreation. In the winter, Medvednica offers its visitors opportunities to ski, sledge and enjoy the fresh air and winter idyll. In the summer, it attracts many visitors on account of its much more pleasant climate, with temperatures several degrees lower than in the city. Medvednica offers 11 mountaineers’ lodge huts, two hotels and 8 hospitality facilities, 15 bicycle trails with a total of 110 km in length and four educational paths. Here is also the cave Veternica which was proclaimed a protected geomorphological monument of nature in 1979. The entry into the cave is located at 320 m above sea-level. The overall length of the until-now explored canals is 7,218 m. The first 380 meters have been adapted for visitors. Visitors can get to know the mysterious underground of Medvednica through a tour of the mine Zrinski.

Mining on Medvednica, in the area of the “Rudarski vrt” (“the mining garden”) dates back to 1463 when king Matija Korvin granted the royal mining benefits to count Petar Zrinski. These benefits allowed Zrinski and his heirs to open gold, silver and other mines on their estates. This benefit enabled the Zrinski to mine on Medvednica.

Medvednica Nature Park www.pp-medvednica.hr VIP Snow Queen Trophy www.zlatnimedvjed.hrVIP Snow Queen Trophy www.snowqueentrophy.com

The Museum of Contemporary Art (Muzej Suvremene Umjetnosit MSU)  the largest museum institution in Croatia and the largest cultural institution since the independence of Croatia has recently been opened in Zagreb.

The new building of the Museum will enable the appropriate conservation and exhibition of the collected art, and the conditions necessary for various programs, educational work-shops, film-projections and theatre performances aimed at the wider public and will make this part of the city the new cultural centre of Zagreb as well as a place of family outings, entertainment and new knowledge.

The overall size of the museum is 14,500 square meters, 3,500 of which is intended for the permanent exhibition, 1,500 for temporary exhibitions and 700 for exhibitions on the roof. The museum features a multimedia hall, library, pedagogical hall, museum store with book-store, cafe, restaurant, suites for visiting artists and curators and a 725 square meter lobby.

After more than 50 years of careful collection, treatment and presentation of only a part of the collection, the fist
exhibition with which the museum introduced itself to the public was its permanent exhibition “Collection in
Movement”. The other exhibition is “Acquisitions 2004-2009″. 

The visitors were also welcomed by the exhibition “Museum before the Museum”, a photography collection by Jasenko Rasol who followed the construction of the museum with his camera.

The art of Croatian and foreign artists that are part of the collection are testimony to the different styles such as abstract expressionism, geometrical and lyrical abstraction, minimalism, proto-conceptualism, analytical and primary painting, Fluxus, conceptual art, optical art, transavangard… reflecting the role of the Museum in following the newest artistic movements.

MSU contains several collections – paintings, sculptures, drawings, graphics, posters, photography, film and video and the media art collection. The museum is also looking after the Richter collection, numbering 182 works of art, the
Josip Seissl collection, numbering 1,258, the Benko Horvat collection with 611, the Toše Dabac archive numbering 200,000 items and the Ivan Kožaric collection with 6,000 items.

Several installations enrich the museum, “the slide” by world-renowned artist Carsten Höller, “Eyes of purification” by Polish artist Miroslaw Balke, on the roof terrace the “Artist at work” by Dalibor Martinis is installed, and in from
of the museum “Frames” by Ivana Franke, Lee Pelivan and Tomo Plejic. On the roof, the installation “War field” is
located, by Ivan Božicevic, and in the museum store the “Alchemy polyptich” by Silvije Vujicic.

The 2010 museum program also features the following exhibitions: A pair of nice shoes – Reality Check in
Eastern Europe, independent exhibition of Danica Dakic, independent exhibition of Aleksandar Srnec, project Gilbert
& George, works from the FRAC collections, exhibition of Zlatko Kopljara, and the Murtic donation.

The Zagreb MSU was founded in December of 1954 and has instantaneously become the reference point on the cultural map of the city. The desire to extend the museum existed in the 1960s, primarily because of the significance of the collections that were kept in unsuitable conditions and were not available to the public.  At the international tender in 1999, the project of architect  Igor Franic won. Construction began in 2003, and was jointly funded by the City of Zagreb and the Ministry of  Culture.

Museum of Contemporary Art website : www.msu.hr

Zagreb was featured in yesterday’s edition of Observer’s series ” World throught a lens“. This is an extract from the article : A whirl of tutus in a Zagreb cafe-bar during a break in ballet rehearsals: poise, and skin, and fabulous discs of swan-white tuile, and yet what are our eyes drawn towards? Exactly. A little paper tube, being happily smoked…

Read the whole article here

Small Photo Album of popular Tkalciceva Street in Zagreb is now uploaded in our Photos of Croatia Gallery.

New photos include:
Cafe Bar Servus in Tkalciceva  / Café Cica, Tkalciceva  / Cafes in Tkalciceva Street / Caffe Bar Suncani Sat in Tkalciceva  / Casino in Tkalciceva  / Crowd in Tkalciceva Street / Dusk in Tkalciceva Street, Zagreb / Galerija Vrbnik in Tkalciceva / Outside Seating in Tkalciceva cafe /Pivnica Medvedgrad in Tkalciceva Street / Tkalciceva before Night /

Click on above image to browse..

To celebrate the launch of new Time Out Zagreb Visitors Guide Magazine, Time Out teamed up with The Zagreb Tourist Board, Wizz Air and The Westin Zagreb, Zagreb to offer you the chance to win a three or five-night (your choice) city break in Zagreb, capital of Croatia.

Two lucky couples will each receive complimentary flights from London Luton on WizzAir and three or five nights accommodation at the city centre’s 5-star Westin Hotel.

The first 250 entrants will also receive a complimentary copy of the new Time Out Zagreb Visitors Guide Magazine worth £5.99. (Applicable to UK residents only.)

For your chance to win, just answer the question at this page

The Croatian National Tourist Board organized a welcome ceremony for the 350 passengers and crew-members, who enjoyed a performance of the folklore ensemble, each receiving a traditional gingerbread heart (‘licitarsko srce’) as a gift.

The charter flights are organized by the Japanese agency ‘Hankyu’. For Japanese visitors, they enable faster and easier travel to Zagreb, the capital with the highest increase in the number of visitors from Japan in the region.

Since the World Expo exhibition was held in the Japanese city of Aichi in 2005, Zagreb is witnessing a 50 % annual growth rate in the number of Japanese visitors.

 According to surveys, it is the historical monuments, natural beauties and relaxed way of life that Japanese visitors enjoy most in Zagreb. They also like to visit some cultural institutions.: Museum of Naive Art and the Botanical Garden, which will be celebrating its 120th anniversary in July.

The garden was opened in 1899 and is located within the ‘Lenuci horseshoe’, a stretch of parks and green areas comprising a monumental frame around the lower town. In the garden, numerous rare plants are cultivated. The garden comprises an arboretum, a flower section, 14 greenhouses, three stone areas and two artificial lakes, an inexhaustible source of inspiration to many great Croatian painters. It is on these lakes that the
great aquarelle painter Slava Raškaj painted some of her paintings from the ‘nenuphar’ series. Today, these are considered masterpieces of Croatian aquarelle painting from the turn of the 19th century. As part of the Zagreb University, the Botanical Garden belongs to the School of Natural Sciences and has always had educational, cultural and historical value. For the past couple of decades it has realized its full potential in tourism as well and was proclaimed a monument of garden architecture in 1971.

Queer Zagreb, festival which hosted so far some of the biggest figures of contemporary dance expression, controversial video projections, motivated discussions and artistic considerations is set to take place from 5th to 10th of May in Zagreb.

‘Queer Zagreb festival contributes each year to the cultural and social diversity of Croatia, as the program attracts wide audiences and allows them to see things differently – but also to see different things.

The festival has been making its mark by presenting artists who challenge norms of aesthetics and of contents within which the vast majority of local culture in Croatia rests, dizzy by the stale stench of mediocricy and bored with itself into deep slumber.

The strength of festival’s program this year lies in the variety of artistic aesthetics and approaches to body as tool of precise choreography, as a source of private and public pleasure or pain, as a space of violence, vessel of illness.

Festival managed to bring together an impressive choir of artistic voices from Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany, Great Britain and Bulgaria.

Details: Queer Zagreb 2009, time: 5.05.2009. – 10.05.2009. place: Zagreb, Croatia , organiser: Queer Zagreb (http://www.queerzagreb.org)

The venue is Student Centre Cinemas in Croatian capital – Zagreb.

The festival promoted the latest production of cinematography from Croatia.

The selection includes feature films, documentaries, animations, experimental and short films.

Click here to see complete programme of the festival.

The International Tourism Fair Crotour 2009 will take place at Zagreb at ‘Zagrebacki velesajam’ from 1st to 5th of April, with intention to introduce foreign tour operators to offers of tourist services of Croatia.

The fair is intended for tour operators, owners of hotel , restaurants, marinas, campsites and other tourist facilities, as well as everyone else interested in using tourist services.

It is also aimed at a very wide public audience, professional organizations and associations.

Among others, the Crotour’s events will also include the ”Buy Croatia” tourism fair organized by Croatian Tourist Board’s to promote destinations in the continental parts of Croatia.

The International Tourism Fair Crotour 2009 is being held under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Croatia and supported by the Croatian Tourist Board and the World Tourism Organization.

Read more about the Fair and find contact info check  here

The 5th ZagrebDox, an international documentary film festival, opened its door on Monday in Zagreb to all documentary fans and is still running until 01.03.09

The Festival was officially opened with the screening of Pinuccio Lovero  A Midsummer Death’s Dream, a documentary about a frustrated undertaker who is having a tough time because none of his fellow citizens has died yet.

Just before the screening, festival director and chief selector Nenad Puhovski expressed gratitude to the audience for visiting the festival in ever growing numbers every year.

He also greeted Croatian president Stjepan Mesić who attended the opening ceremony.

Mayor of Zagreb Milan Bandić , who officially opened the festival, greeted everybody and said that the city has had faith in ZagrebDox form its very beginnings, but that the fact that more than 50,000 viewers saw its films in the past 4 years has exceeded all expectations.

I was also there, sitting  in the audience (see me in lower left corner of above photo), enjoying the opening night – click to see the large photo of ZagrebDox audience

The festival has three programs – the Regional Competition, the International Competition and the Documentary and Other program.

At the festival that is celebrating its fifth birthday,  the audience will have a chance to see over 120 contemporary documentary films, among which will be musical documentaries, films about current crisis of modern capitalism as well as Happy Dox program.

The Fifth ZagrebDox will be taking place in Zagreb Student Centre, Savska 25, Zagreb, Croatia ( www.sczg.hr )

See detailed programme: www.zagrebdox.net and check last year’s festival info

Copenhagen, Oslo and Helsinki will be connected with Split and Dubrovnik by direct flights during the summer season.

Norwegian low-budget airline Norwegian Air and Denmark’s Cimber Air will take over flights previously arranged with the bankrupted Icelandic airline Sterling from the Danish capital to Croatia.

From June 2009, Croatia Airlines will introduce direct weekly flights from Gothenburg to Split and Dubrovnik, and during the season there will be additional flights between Copenhagen and Zagreb. (source www.hina.hr)

.. we handcrafted a holiday that offered all the elements they (teenagers) were after, albeit not in quite the same configuration. We would be providing them  with a foreign location (Croatia), sunshine (temperatures in the mid-30sC), an element of the urban (three independently organised days in Zagreb), plus plenty of own-age social opportunities in the form of a week-long families-with-teenagers activity holiday, run by the Adventure Company, at a little village in the beautiful Plitvice National Park…

Read the whole article here

The motorway network in Croatia is becoming longer and longer, so it is now safe to say that this is a country having one of the most developed road infrastructures in Europe.

The construction of the remaining 14.5-kilometer-long sections of the Zagreb-Rijeka Motorway contributed to this. Last October, the construction of the full profile of the motorway connecting the Croatian capital with Rijeka was completed.

Thanks to this, visitors to Croatia,  arriving by road in the North Adriatic from European countries will have a more pleasant and faster trip than ever. In addition, the wooded and increasingly interesting Gorski Kotar, the Croatian capital city of Zagreb and other continental destinations are now even closer to guests taking their holidays in the North Adriatic, so they will be able to enjoy an even more extensive excursion program.

The length of the Zagreb-Rijeka Motorway is 146.4 kilometers and it only takes 1 hour and fifteen minutes to travel the distance between the two cities. The motorway has 13 tunnels of the overall length of 10.3 kilometers and six bridges of 1.7 kilometers.

The Zagreb-Rijeka Motorway is part of the European E65 route and part of the pan-European 5b corridor going via Zagreb to the border crossing with Hungary (Goričan) and further to Budapest.

Concurrently with the opening of the remaining part of the Zagreb-Rijeka Motorway, the section between the Goričan border crossing on the Croatian side and the Letenye border crossing on the Hungarian side and the bridge on Mura were opened, thanks to which the full-profile motorway now connects Budapest and Rijeka.
The motorway stretches for 263.7 kilometers in Croatia.

In Hungary, where intensive work has also been done on its construction, the motorway is 232.5 kilometers long. Visitors from Budapest will now be able to reach the Croatian Adriatic in less than five hours by car, which will surely be another reason for the traditionally numerous tourists from Central and Eastern Europe to visit Croatia.

Read more about roads in Croatia and visit Autocesta Rijeka-Zagreb site at www.arz.hr

The competitions will be held on Sljeme, the highest point of Mount Medvednica during the night.

Women’s slalom at the Audi FIS World Cup “VIP Snow Queen Trophy 2009” will be held on January 4, while the men skiers’ competition will be held on January 6, with both races taking place at night.

Except excellent trail and top organisation, the World Cup is traditionally known for unique atmosphere created with the city interaction, its inhabitants and the participants of the competition.

Zagreb is one of the rare European capitals having a park near the city centre which can be walked to. Mount Medvednica and its highest point – Sljeme (1033 metres)  are an interesting destination for Zagreb inhabitants and their guests in winter and summer. With great choices for rest and recreation, Sljeme attracts during the summer months because of considerably more pleasant climate and temperatures several degrees lower than in the city.

During winter, Sljeme is a place for skiing, sledding and enjoying fresh air and winter idyll. Regardless of the weather, Zagreb residents and their guests use every free moment for escaping to nature, but also for the enjoyment in the catering contents. On Sljeme, there are many accommodation objects and the catering is well-known with many local specialities.

Because of the intimate emotional connection between Zagreb and Sljeme, the residents host the skiing elite with a heartfelt welcome and they cheer on all the skiers equally. Read more at  www.zlatnimedvjed.hr and find more about Skiing in Croatia

The biggest hall located on the first floor, can seat up to 1000 people. There are also some 20 newly opened smaller rooms suitable for conferences, workshops and similar gatherings.

The design of the entire congress center has made use of the highest quality materials.

 The meeting rooms benefit from natural daylight and have views of parks and greenery, but also allow for the possibility of achieving complete blackout, if necessary.

The functionality, comfort and design of the meeting areas would not be complete without the state-of-the art, yet extremely user-friendly, technology with possibility to hire a video-conferencing system as well as the highest quality interpretation services. 

Presentations in bigger halls may be transmitted to any of the smaller ones. They can be recorded and copied for the meeting organizer and participants’ benefit.

Hotel Antunović’s status as a top-class congress center is confirmed by many other features – 158 spacious and comfortable rooms and a luxurious presidential suite.

The dining facilities and gastronomic offers are designed to suit the tastes of both business as well as all other types of clients. To top it all off, the Vertigo bar at the top of the building on the eighth floor, revolves and offers a great view of the city.

The hotel also boasts a wellness center, a casino with games and machines and an underground garage.

Contact : Hotel Antunovic Zagreb – Zagrebacka avenija 100A (ex-Ljubljanska avenija), 10000 Zagreb (Špansko) – More info, photos and booking

ZAGREB: A CULTURAL AND LITERARY HISTORY book by Celia Hawkesworth, Foreword by Sonia Wild Bićanić:

Situated at the foot of a range of hills on the edge of the great Pannonian Plain, for most of its history Zagreb has been a small town to which things happened. Administered from 1102 by Hungary and later absorbed into the Habsburg Monarchy, Zagreb was under threat from the advancing Ottomans until the late sixteenth century. In 1918 the Croatian lands joined their immediate South Slav neighbours in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia. Following Yugoslavia’s violent collapse, in 1991 Zagreb became the capital city of the new independent Croatia.

From the mid-nineteenth century onwards Zagreb developed steadily into a modern city, reflecting all the important trends in Central European culture, architecture and fashion. Its pretty centre is laid out according to a plan incorporating trees and public gardens, forming a “green horseshoe” lined with imposing buildings. Celia Hawkesworth explores this central core and the atmospheric old town on a rise above it, finding a mix of old and modern building, a rich cultural tradition and a vibrant outdoor café life. She tells the story of many individuals who have contributed to creating the city’s unique inner life and who are commemorated in statues in the streets and squares… read more

The exhibition features 120 graphics and drawings by artists from one of the most powerful movements in modern European painting.

The presented works fo art were collected from a number of museums and galleries in Germany and represent the works of all the major artists whose creations are related to “The Bridge” and “The Blue Rider” groups.

Featured artsts include Erich Heckel, Ernest-Ludwig Kirshner, Otto Müller, Emil Nolde, Mach Pecchstein, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff,  Vasilij Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Paul Klee, Heinrich Campedonk, Lyonel Feininger, Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabriela Münter, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix and Ludwig Meidner.

The exhibition will be opened until end of January 2009. More info on gallery home page

The construction work on the motorway began in 1971 and is valued at 660 million euros.

Also, the section of the motorway between Gorican and the Hungarian border and the new Mura bridge between Croatia and Hungary have been opened, so that now the Zagreb-Gorican motorway is fully operational.

As of 1 November, the motorway toll for this route will be HRK 60.

Prime Minister Sanader stated that this was the realization of a dream for the citizens of Croatia which could not be achieved during the period of Yugoslavian rule.
Croatia was not a priority in those times and could not lead independent politics as far as economics or any other aspect of life was concerned.

Over 50 films will be competing to win the Golden Bib award in the main programme, and the whole programme includes over 80 films from around the world. 

The international competition for the Golden Bib award will feature 11 films, 15 short movies, 12 documentaries and 10 new Croatian films as a part of the Checkered programme.

Zagreb Film Festival was established in 2003. Besides organization of festivals and public events, the basic activities of the house are film and video production as well as creation and production of creative event solutions and campaigns.

For more info, please visit: www.zagrebfilmfestival.com

The organisation committee has announced that this year’s Pride is to be closely monitored by international human right organisations and European institutions.

The Zagreb Pride march will be held on Saturday, June 28, followed by a rock concert.

Read about Gay Croatia