As part of the award ceremony for the 5th OFF Pro Film Market in Sarajevo, the director of Telemach OFF and also the Artistic Director of the Hvar Film Festival announced the inaugural edition of the Festival, which starts on September 10th and runs until September 14th.
The Hvar Film Festival will be held in the town of Hvar at several locations, adapting its program to both domestic and international audiences, as well as to the film industry participants coming from regional countries, as well as Austria, Italy, France, Spain, and other European countries.
The festival will screen 20 short competition films, including 10 films in the regional film category and 10 films in the Sunny Shorts category. The short film slots will be shown in open-air cinemas starting at 9 PM. The complete program schedule and information about locations and obtaining free tickets will be available from August 20th.
In addition to the competition films, there will be out-of-competition film screenings.
Besides the audience-oriented program, the Hvar Film Festival will also pay great attention to the industry from its first year. The festival will organize the Sunny Shorts Film Market (SSFM), featuring two days of sessions and workshops, as well as the Sunny Pitch – showcasing 8 projects in development to the jury and industry program participants in search of production funds to complete their films.
From September 10th to 14th, the Hvar Film Festival will bring a touch of film glamour and top-notch films to the town of Hvar, significantly contributing to the cultural offerings not only of Hvar but also of the entire Dalmatian region, considering the prominent names from the film world who will be part of the Festival.
In addition to the film and industry programs, this year, HFF will also award an Artist Residence to one author who will spend 3 weeks in Hvar at the end of the year working on their project in development.
The HFF is held under the patronage of the Town of Hvar, the Hvar Town Tourist Board, the Split-Dalmatia County Tourist Board, and the Hvar 16 12 Cultural Institution. The main sponsor of the Festival is Telemach HR.
Artistic Director of the HFF Festival, Kenan Musić, stated at the festival presentation in Sarajevo that Hvar has the potential to become a hub for the film industry. “We are starting with an industrial initiative focused on short films. We are putting short films at the center of events and giving them the significance they deserve. In the coming years, we will invite and bring the biggest short film producers to Hvar, connecting the region and this part of Europe with the rest of the world. The value of Hvar as a place for making film deals is invaluable, and we want to leverage it so that young professionals have a springboard for their further careers and development. Croatia recently won its Palme d’Or, and we want to bring even more of them to Croatia. The Palme d’Or, the Bear, and all the significant awards we have. In Sarajevo, we have been running the Youth Film Festival for 16 years and have had the largest short film market in this part of the world for 5 years. We have shown that it is possible and that we should do it, and now it is time for Hvar and Croatia to have a significant festival dedicated to the industry as much as to the audience,” said Musić.
The complete program and screening schedule will be available from August 20th on www.hvarfilmfestival.hr.
