Locations: Karaman Cinema, Academia Club Ghetto, Cinematheque Zlatna vrata,  Kvart Gallery

Date: September 12–16, 2025

The Split Film Festival Returns for Its 30th Anniversary Edition

After a one-year pause due to the sudden passing of the Split Film Festival’s founder, Branko Karabatić, the festival has been taken over by a new management team, which promises to continue fostering uncompromising artistic and auteur film and video. For its 30th anniversary edition, the Split Film Festival has prepared 57 films and videos from 29 countries, stretching from Japan to Peru. The new edition will take place from September 12 to 16. Several filmmakers have confirmed their attendance, offering visitors the chance to share impressions while mingling during screenings. In addition to two well-known venues – Kino Karaman and Kinoteka Zlatna vrata, where the short and feature film competitions will be screened – STFF’s screen will also rise at the Kvart Gallery in Trstenik, Academia Club Ghetto, and even at a farm – Farm house – for a special screening. This year’s visual identity is designed by Segor Garber, while the new festival award is created by sculptor Boris Šitum.

The 30th edition of STFF will open with the Japanese feature film Public Swimming Pool Numakage from the competition program, introduced to the audience at Kino Karaman via video message by its author Shingo Ota. The competition will close with the multiple award-winning Punku, by Peruvian director J.D. Fernández Molero, which had its world premiere at this year’s Berlinale. Another festival favorite, judging by the number of awards, is My Friend Miles by Pieter Solta – a cinematic portrait that explores philosophical themes while formally functioning as an homage to cinema itself. The feature competition will also include the animated film Hotel Memory, set in wartime 1945, a project that author Heinrich Sabl has been working on since 1999. Kino Karaman will host two world premieres: Alma Blu, the feature debut of young director Alice Palchetti – an intimate yet universal story about identity, heritage, and the search for one’s place in the world – and A Beautiful and Tidy Room, exploring the personal experience of shared living, presented in person by director Maria Petschnig, whom New York Magazine once dubbed “the Franz Kafka of the film world” for her distinctive poetics. Also premiering in Split is perhaps the most genre-intriguing title – the horror Exit Medea, a poetic collage of languages, genres, and visual elements, presented to the audience by author Tony Paraskeva.

The short film competition will feature 18 titles, with a strong focus on experimental works, many of them by filmmakers born after the year 2000. Kinoteka Zlatna vrata will host as many as 16 Croatian premieres. Among the highlights are Ultraviolet by José Magro, an unusual story of aliens and abandoned football stadiums, and Impivaara – A New World, an experimental adaptation of the Finnish classic Seven Brothers, directed by Patrik Soderlund, a Venice Biennale artist. Also notable is Anatomy of a Lost Sound by Zuke Garagić, described as “essential viewing for understanding the remilitarization of child-rearing in the 21st century.” Among Croatian entries, The Heat by Goran Nježić and Matija Tomić follows three young friends in their small, seemingly meaningless rebellions against monotony, while the anxiety of the urban void presses relentlessly upon them.

Other locations will host side programs. At Academia Club Ghetto, audiences will enjoy the Focus program, dedicated to social issues. In collaboration with the association Mavena – 36 of Her Miracles, a new festival titled “Dunja’s Nights” will be presented, honoring the pioneer of feminist film, Split-born Tatjana Dunja Ivanišević. The program includes video installations, video poetry, experimental shorts and features, evoking the avant-garde, experimental, and feminist spirit embodied by Žemsko in 1968. In the courtyard of Kvart Gallery in Trstenik, audiences will be able to watch a selection of Croatian short films. The Forum program includes feature films screened out of competition, while a new Spotlight section emphasizes authorship by showcasing the works of a single chosen filmmaker. The Rural program will be a special treat for the residents of Brštanovo and the surrounding area, with films screened outdoors on hay bales at the Farm house. Finally, video and new media programs will be on view throughout the festival at Kvart Gallery and the Loggia of Zlatna vrata.

In a celebratory spirit, all film screenings will be free of charge, with early arrival recommended. More information on the program will be available on social media and the official website.

The Split Film Festival is held with the support of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre and the City of Split, with the generosity of HULU Split, MKC Split, Gallery of Fine Arts, Farm house,