Vera Zima

The story of Jasna, a Croatian ex-pat who, due to her mother Anka's declining health, is forced to return to a place she has been avoiding most of her life - her home. The two haven't been in touch for years, but the proximity of death forces them to confront the ghosts of their past. It is also a portrait of life in a typical small town in the midst of Mediterranean hinterland. Plunging into the anxieties of the community, MATER subtly uncovers class, status, and gender issues that shape Anka's and Jasna's personalities - their stubbornness, strength, and tragic flaws.

6.8/10

Alvin signed a book deal for a book depicting love in modern age based on his own experiences. But he did not count on the fact that return to those experiences hurts.

7.1/10

At the beginning of the war in Croatia, Vjera refuses to leave the ruins of her home on the front line . Her husband flees town while their son goes to battlefield. Working as an interpreter she starts her path of self-discovery.

6.8/10

Eliciting images of cancer, this drama explores the illnesses that plague modern Croatia. Four young junkies in Zagreb maturing in the wake of war reflect the petty hatreds, violence, prejudices and mood hanging over the country like a disease that spreads with no cure in sight.

7.7/10

The microcosmic world of a street market on the outskirts of Zagreb: traders, thieves, prostitutes, self-appointed security guards and other lost souls, each with their own unique ideas, passion or mania. We follow the tragicomic, mutually intertwined mini dramas of each character, as they fight to save the marketplace itself, when city planners threaten to raze it to the ground and replace it with a skyscraper.

4.5/10

Goran remembers his childhood: in the early 70s, he was only 9 years old, adoring football and awaiting a prestigious basketball game between Yugoslavia and the US. But then his parents, Ante and Gordana, decided to divorce, leaving him in turmoil and sadness.

6.5/10

Mirjana is returning to Croatia from Germany where she spent some time as a refugee. She is pregnant. Now, when the war in Croatia is over and her visa expired, Mirjana is coming back to her family in a remote and devastated village. Her family is trying to move on with their lives after the war. They rebuild their house and they are trying to find a new husband for their pregnant daughter. Being patriarchal and devoted to their tradition they believe a woman needs to have a husband and a child has to have a father. Of course, the child and the father have to be of the same nationality. Problems start when Mirjana gives a birth to a boy with Asian features. The family and the neighbors are shocked. Mirjana¡¦s rigid father refuses to accept a grandchild of a different nationality, not to mention the one of a different race! Mirjana and her son are forced to leave. She returns only when her father falls seriously ill and requests to see his grandson before he dies.

6.7/10

"Long Dark Night" follows the life of the fictional character Iva Kolar: his experiences as a Croatian University student, his role as a Partisan fighting Hitler's troops during W.W. II, his involvement in his nation's post-war government, and his eventual downfall.

6.9/10

The adventures of a small town Croatian family during the 1960s. The decade will leave eternal marks on all of their members, but most of the story focuses on the youngest one, a boy, Frula, who discovers the love and fashion of the time.

7.9/10

A homeless man who lives in abandoned bus finds out that his daughter comes from Germany to meet him for the first time in twelve years. Ashamed of his present situation and unable to cope with it, he breaks into apartment of his rich ex-friend who is involved in criminal activities.

7.3/10

After being repeatedly denied her requests for a vacation by her sexist boss, a young woman finally explodes.

6.1/10

Ante is a village fella who arrives in Zagreb to study at the faculty of forestry.

5.9/10

It deals with unexpected romance between a salesgirl and a police inspector.

The story about the Bleiburg massacre, seen from a Croatian Home Defenders point of view.

4.5/10

In the Autumn of 1991 Croatia is fighting for independence and the capital Zagreb is plagued by air raid alerts and blackouts. Hela Martinic is a reporter, who returns to her home town from Australia, called by her old friend Vera Kralj. Soon after arrival, she is told her friend was killed in a traffic accident. At the funeral she meets some people who Vera was involved in some sinister activities and she begins her own investigation.

7.5/10

The story follows a group of Croatian refugees who have been forced to leave their hometown of Vukovar by Serbian forces during Croatia's struggle for independence. The people are settled at a railway station in a village near Vukovar, where they live in a train which is adapted to serve as a temporary accommodation.The situation grows dim as the date of their return proves to be uncertain, and the lives of the survivors and refugees becomes more and more complicated being burdened by PTSP and strong feelings of hope to return to their homestead.

5.6/10

A pharmacist travels from the island to the usual medical treatment at hospital in Zagreb. He's followed by low-ranked regime official whose conduct reveals all the misery that arises between people living in totalitarian systems.

7/10

Musicologist and professor Kosor wakes up in a hospital. He has survived a serious car accident. In a bed next to his lies the amiable economist Gajski, whose wife Melita regularly visits him. This unusually beautiful woman is the first person that Kosor sees after he gains consciousness and is completely enchanted by her. Kosor becomes obsessed by Melita’s physical beauty and her trustworthy character and begins a risky game of writing and sending her anonymous love letters…

7.3/10

Deals with the father-son conflict in a farming family. The two never see eye to eye especially over the way the farm is run. The boy opts for a different way of life and also falls in love with a dumb girl to the horror of his family.

7.8/10

Melkior Tresic is one of many intellectuals in 1941 Zagreb who is helplessly waiting for the encroaching war.

7.2/10

In order to save her marriage, Marija tries to erase from memory the trauma that she's been haunted by ever since youth. The shock she had suffered killed all the love she felt for Dinko. When she meets him again, now that he has become a hopeless drunkard, she feels lost even more.

5.8/10

During WW2, a young student of medicine comes to the big city to discover the secret of death, and stays at a motel that turns out to be a brothel. He is asked from Ustasha officer to perform experiments of resurrecting the dead, while the Fascist authorities look for a female communist hiding in the city.

7.3/10

Stressful life of a journalist in the former Yugoslavia.

6.8/10

A story about life adversities of an old emigrant who returns from America to his native village.

7.6/10