Free Zone Film Festival

The festival presented some of the best socially engaged documentaries and feature films from around the world, including a number of winners of major festival awards. In addition to critics’ and audience favourites, the festival also screened three exceptional films:  Johanna Hamilton’s 1971, ʻa film about the 1971 FBI break-in [which ] traces a path to Snowden And Wikileaksʼ (Forbes), which has won several international awards, including one from the International Film Festival in New York; Claude Lanzmann’s documentary The Last of the Unjust, ʼa portrait of an individual whose actions still defy comprehension, and the self-portrait of an artist consumed by the pastʼ (The Times),  which collected three international film festival awards in 2014, in Cannes, Berlin and Toronto; and Göran Hugo Olsson’s  Concerning Violence, ʼa challenging, even confrontational portrait of a forgotten or glossed-over revolutionary periodʻ (Salon), which won the 2014 Sundance International Film Festival award and an award from the Berlin International Film Festival, among others.

The Cross Media selection was a new feature of last year’s Free Zone  Festival. The programme editor, Biljana Tutorov, spoke of the future of film using a selection of the most interesting film and video projects, web documentaries and hybrid audio-visual forms that combine digital technology and film in a search for new means of expression.

The programme was followed by master classes held by Sara Božanić from the Institute for Transmedia Design and Dominic Laporte from Brussels, who offered the audience a unique opportunity to become familiar with specific types of new media.

Sara Božanić spoke on understanding Transmedia from the viewer’s perspective and the keys to success in interactive documentaries, portable games and online experience.