Tuesday, 29 September 2026 at 6 pm
For the second time, the Dokumetar Association is organising the “Dokumentarni.days” event, which aims to contribute to increasing the visibility of Croatian documentary filmmaking to the public and the media. This year's programme will take place over two days, 29 and 30 September, at Dokukino in Zagreb, and will consist of three discursive panels, the seventh annual Dokumetar Award ceremony, and a screening of the winning film followed by a conversation with its author.
The second edition of “Dokumentarni.days” begins with the panel “Ethical Representation”, where we will explore the ethical questions arising from the depiction, representation, and portrayal of certain types of experience and subjects on film. With a particular interest in the place of vulnerable groups and protagonists in this context, as well as topics of sensitive collective significance, The discussion will address the issue of experience appropriation, the director's right to tell certain stories, and the agreement and disagreements in the views of the director and the film subject regarding the portrayal of individual and group experiences and identities. The discussion will consider the question of trends and tendencies in the increased visibility of previously neglected, unrepresented or under-represented themes and perspectives, such as those of socially marginalised individuals, as well as whether this opening up of perspectives is becoming a new kind of obsession, with the risk of exploitation.
In addition to the issues concerning the conceptual dimensions of the documentary film, the question of the material reality of its production will also be raised, from compensating the subjects of the film's story to the measurability of the finished film's impact on the public – should a particular film also aim to improve the negative social phenomena it might map and comment on, and how can this contribution be established?
An hour later, on 29 September at 7 pm, the panel “All Roads of Money” addresses how HAVC selects the documentaries it financially supports and extends the topic of funding to the life of a film after its festival circuit. The problems filmmakers encounter include an extremely selective, narrow acquisition of domestic films for screening on the national public media service, a subsequent lack of transparency in the screening schedule for a single acquired film, and generally lower public funding allocated to documentary projects. Alternative funding methods are becoming increasingly common in the cultural and creative industries, even in national contexts with much more diversified and institutionally developed funding systems.
In Croatia and elsewhere, traditional film festivals for filmmakers are not only a route to an audience but also to distributors. In the current era of streaming platforms, social media and the possibility of highly niche product placement, are festivals spaces of opportunity and openness, or do they close the door on change, different approaches and voices? This panel places an emphasis on the economic calculations of these processes and the continuity of film institutions, which include festivals as both sowers and continuators of specific relationships within the film field.